


blink back to let me know

by slowklancing (notanannoyingfangirl)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Conspiracy Theorist Keith (Voltron), Creepy aliens, Dialogue Heavy, Dialogue-Driven, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic Violence, Horror, Lifeline au, M/M, Mind Control, Minor Character Death, Nausea, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Pidge Goes by Both Pidge and Katie, Psychological Horror, Science Fiction, Science Student Lance, Student Lance (Voltron), Survival Horror, The Alteans are Dead or Mostly Dead, The Garrison is Sketchy as Fuck, Undead, Violence, body takeover, supernatural horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-04-19 18:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanannoyingfangirl/pseuds/slowklancing
Summary: “Hello? Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?”The SS Atlas has gone dark. Keith Kogane, the younger brother of famed pilot Takashi Shirogane, can’t shake that the notion that the Garrison is hiding something about the Atlas’ disappearance, the same way they covered up the truth of the Kerberos crash. Because there’s no way that his brother’s ship crashed due to ‘pilot error’ and he’s going to prove it. When his research stumbles upon Lance Álvarez, a Galaxy Garrison student who survived the crash of the Atlas, Keith realizes that he will do whatever it take to bring Lance home safely.





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone
> 
> Thank you so much for reading my new fic! (For those of you who are INSLYTLTL fans, don’t worry, uploads will continue as normal!) This is just a little passion project I’ve been working on, because I recently replayed the choose-your-own-adventure app Lifeline by 3 Minute Games, LLC. The game concerns an astronaut named Taylor, who you must try to keep alive. And I couldn’t get the idea of a Klance Lifeline AU out of my mind, so I finally got around to writing it. 
> 
> Since this fic completely follows the app, almost all of Lance’s dialogue is taken directly from the game, because I couldn’t get over how similar Taylor and Lance sounded in my mind. Credit for the storyline and characters obviously belongs to their respective owners - 3 Minute Games, LLC and Dreamworks Animation, and I’m not claiming ownership over any ot it. 
> 
> Additionally, the title of this fic is taken from a Panic! At the Disco song.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to the lovely Cait (sunnyjolras) for beta reading for me. Cait, my platonic soulmate, my other half, you are a goddess among women *muah* 
> 
> Finally, as the tags say, this fic definitely deals with some dark issues such as horror, violence, gore, nausea, etc. so please keep that in mind as you read! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy my new AU! It’s broken up into three main parts of varying lengths, as well as a shorter epilogue, and the whole fic is around 42,000 words. If you like it, feel free to drop a comment or leave kudos, or you can come find me on twitter @slowklancing 
> 
> \- slowklancing

**DAY ONE**

 

“... been a week since the last contact with the SS Atlas, according to reports released during the press release with NASA officials this morning…”

The small television sitting on the desk in Pidge’s dorm room was the only source of light in the room, the blonde news anchor on screen diligently updating the masses on what everyone else had already reported hours ago.

For the first time in two years, another spaceship had gone dark.

Keith glanced at the TV just in time to watch a picture of the Atlas be flashed across the screen.

At least this time they were actually saying that the crew members were MIA, not killed in a crash that occurred as a result of “pilot error.”

“Do you think whatever happened to the SS Atlas is what happened to the Kerberos?” Keith asked, as he pulled out the chair next to the one that his younger friend was currently occupying.

Pidge glanced up from whatever they were fiddling with, the glare from the television reflecting off of their glasses. “Yes,” they said, without any hesitation.

Keith nodded. He had figured that would be Pidge’s answer, it was the same as the feeling in his own gut.

Something wasn’t right with the disappearance of the SS Atlas. Just like something wasn’t right about the so-called “crash” that NASA claimed had destroyed the SS Kerberos and taken the lives of its three passengers: pilot Takashi Shirogane, engineer Samuel Holt, and junior science officer Matthew Holt.

Otherwise known as Keith’s older foster brother, and Pidge’s father and brother.

There was a reason the pair had become friends over the past two years.

“That’s not what the teachers at the Garrison are saying,” Keith added, just because he needed an outlet for his own annoyance at them, and getting into fist-fights wasn’t really a healthy coping mechanism. At least, not if he didn’t want to get kicked out of the Garrison… again.

“That’s because they’re all under NASA’s thumb,” Pidge huffed. “The Garrison knows what’s really going on, trust me.”

“I wish _we_ knew what was really going on,” Keith said, as he slid his laptop out of his bag and flipped it open. He let it boot up, while he leaned over to see what Pidge was working on.

“Hey! That’s my phone!” Keith said, wincing as Pidge popped the screen back onto his black iPhone. “... how did you get my phone?”

Pidge waved a hand, “Not important.”

“Did you _steal_ it? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just.. what are you _doing_ with it?” Keith asked, and Pidge plugged the phone into their computer.

“I’m improving it,” Pidge said, with a small huff.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Keith said in a low voice, “this had better not be like the time that you tried to ‘improve’ my phone by hacking into the Garrison’s network. Because if you’ll recall, that _didn’t work_.”

“It’s not like that! Well… not really!” Pidge said, tearing their attention away from their laptop just long enough to fix Keith with a quick glare.

“Then tell me what you’re doing,” Keith insisted.

“Ugh, fine,” Pidge groaned, swiveling around on their swivel chair to face Keith. “I’m currently installing an app that I’ve been designing. I just had to update your hardware first.”

“And what kind of app is it?” Keith asked warily.

“It basically turns your phone into a two-way radio, making it possible, potentially, if it works, for your phone to pick up broadcasting signals. If the Garrison is broadcasting anything… well, this should help you pick it up.”

“Pidge,” Keith let out a low whistle, a little impressed despite himself, “did you really make me an app so that I could spy on the Garrison?”

Pidge shrugged, unplugging the phone from the computer and holding it out towards Keith. “We both know that they’re hiding something. And this should be easier than that creepy cork-board wall that you have going in your dorm.”

“This doesn’t meant that I’m getting rid of that,” Keith warned, but he accepted the cellphone. “But thank you for the app.”

Pidge pushed their glasses further up their nose. “If you hear anything about what really happened to the SS Atlas… let me know.”

“I will,” Keith promised, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “I’ll test it out tonight.”

“Good,” Pidge nodded.

Keith pulled up the internet on his laptop, quickly typing “SS Atlas” into the search bar, dozens of links to articles loading almost immediately.

A few of the articles were clearly political, claiming that some country or another had captured the space vessel and that the crew members were now likely prisoners of war. Others merely reported the facts, that the SS Atlas hadn’t checked in when they were supposed to and had been declared missing in action. Some of the articles, the ones that Keith prefered, speculated that the ship had been captured by alien life forms.

None of the articles made the connection back to the similar disappearance of the SS Kerberos.

Because no one thought that the SS Kerberos had disappeared, Keith couldn’t help thinking. Everyone thought that it was destroyed.

He backed out of the article he had opened, pulling up the next one - an article released from the Garrison, itself.

_Garrison Student Lance Álvarez Declared Missing-in-Action After the Disappearance of the SS Atlas_

“There was a Garrison student on board?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow as he turned to look at Pidge.

Pidge nodded. “Do you remember last year, when they had that student lottery in the science department? The winner got to join the crew of the ship as an intern.”

“Huh,” Keith said, skimming the article. “Not the summer internship I would have chosen.”

“Oh please,” Pidge returned absentmindedly, as they turned their attention back to their own laptop. “You would have gone if you could have.”

Keith let his eyes linger on the words Missing-in-Action. He wondered idly if it was better for the family or worse to not know if their loved one was alive or dead.

Worse, probably, he determined.

Judging by how he felt about Shiro.

< < < > > >

Keith tossed himself back onto his bed, not even bothering to climb under the covers.

He and Pidge had been up late researching articles on the SS Atlas’ disappearance for what Pidge called his “stalker board,” and after the events of the day, he was exhausted.

But…

He had promised Pidge that he would try out their two-way radio app.

And, to be perfectly honest, Keith was a little curious whether or not it would work, himself.

Wiggling so that he could pry his phone out of the pocket of his black skinny jeans, Keith fumbled with his other hand for the tangled pair of headphones that he knew were sitting on his dresser. He plugged the headphones into his phone’s audio jack, and slid them into his ears.

He scrolled through his phone until he found the app that Pidge had installed for him, a plain black square with the white outline of a walkie talkie.

Rolling his eyes at the image, Keith tapped the app.

A grey screen appeared, with an image that looked like a car radio, complete with arrows pointing to either side.

Keith turned up the volume on his headphones, a dull static noise replacing the silence.

Nothing on this frequency.

Choosing the right arrow, Keith flickered through the frequencies, hearing mostly static. Every once in a while it was replaced by a song as he accidentally picked up the signal from the local radio station, but otherwise it was a whole lot of nothing.

So Pidge’s plan had worked, but it didn’t seem like there was anything interesting to hear.

Keith was about to give up and call it a day when suddenly the static gave way to a crisp voice, the change so abrupt that Keith bolted upright in his bed.

“Hello? Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?”

Keith reached up, tangling his fingers in his headphone wires and bringing the microphone closer to his mouth.

He wasn’t… he didn’t… Keith wasn’t sure what possessed him to speak, when he normally would have ignored something that was probably just a joke or prank like this clearly had to be, but… there was something about the voice on the other end of the line.

They sounded _scared_.

“Um, I read you,” Keith said into the microphone, feeling more than a little dumb. Oh god, what if Pidge hadn’t managed to actually make the audio work both ways and he was just talking to his empty dorm room?

“Oh, thank god!” The voice said, sounding like they were nearly weeping with relief. “It’s been hours!”

“Um, are you… okay?” Keith asked, laying back down on his bed.

“Relatively?” The voice said, raising in pitch slightly. “I could be worse.” There was a slight hiccup.

“Wait, wait,” Keith said, “back up. Who are you and what happened?”

“Oh, right. Guess I should have started with that. I was just so relieved that someone responded to my signal. The name’s Lance. I was a… an astronaut on board the SS Atlas.”

Keith jolted back upwards, his heart slamming into his chest. “Are you fucking with me right now?” He hissed. “The SS Atlas went dark a week ago. There’s no way that you’re really contacting me right now.”  

That was _impossible_. There was absolutely no way that he had just _stumbled_ upon a communication from one of the missing crew members.

It just… didn’t make any sense.

“I’m not fucking with you!” The voice cried. “We lost communication signals when we entered the Solar System NB-71 but we thought we would be able to establish them before our next check in. But… our ship crashed before we were able to. On some moon. I have no idea where. I don’t even know if we’re still _in_ Solar System NB-71!”

Keith closed his eyes.

The distress in this guy’s voice, the way his breath had caught in his throat, he sounded like he was on the verge of an anxiety attack… there was no way to fake that.

It was impossible.

There was _no way_ that he should be picking up this signal when _fucking_ NASA had declared the crew MIA but… against everything in Keith that screamed it wasn’t possible, no way, no how…

He believed him.

“I managed to get into an escape pod,” the guy continued, obviously unaware of Keith’s mental crisis over whether or not he should be trusted. “But I have no idea if any of the other members of the crew were able to make it onto a pod as well. My IEVA suit sensor tells me that the air here is breathable, at least, so that’s nothing short of a miracle. But I’ve got no food or water rations on me, and the toolkit from the pod is about as basic as they come. I managed to get the pod’s mobile transmitter working, but - lucky you - you seem to be the only one picking up my signal. Whoever and wherever you might be.”

“I’m Keith,” Keith said, before wincing slightly. Rule number one, never give your real name to strangers you meet on the internet. Although… this wasn’t technically the internet. “I’m… on Earth.”

“You’re on Earth?” The guy, Lance, let out a relieved sigh. Or maybe it was a sob. “Oh thank god.”

“So… are you alright?” Keith asked. “I mean, you aren’t injured or anything?”

“Let’s see. My ship just crashed in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one is hailing on this frequency, and so far I don’t see any survivors other than me… and I’m literally the least prepared person in existence for this sort of emergency! But I got out of the whole mess with nothing but a stubbed toe, so things are looking just _peachy_. Thanks for asking.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Wait… hold up… what do you mean by ‘least prepared’?”

“I’m… I’m a student, _okay_?” The voice, Lance, said, squeaking slightly like they didn’t want to admit whatever they were about to. “I’m not an astronaut. My number came up in a lottery of science students, and I got to join the mission. I was on board the Atlas running, like, zero-G tests on mice and stuff. I was never, ever, meant to be anywhere without a supervisor by my side at any time. So it’s safe to say that this crash landing wasn’t covered anywhere in my student handbook. I mean, this stuff definitely wasn’t covered on any of my science exams!”

Keith let out a long, slow breath. “Lance Álvarez,” he said, remembering the article he and Pidge had brushed over earlier. “You were a student at the Garrison.”

“Yeah,” Lance’s voice was small. “You’ve heard of me?”

Keith nodded, even though Lance couldn’t see him. “You’ve been declared MIA.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lance said quietly. “My Mamá is gonna be _so_ worried.”

Sensing the terrible train of thought that Lance was about to lead himself down, Keith tried to change the subject. “Tell me where you are right now.”

“Uh,” Lance hesitated. “The only way that I can answer that with any confidence is to say ‘stranded’. If you know where nowhere is, just look right in the middle of it, and you’ll spot me. The Atlas was on a gentle elliptical path towards Tau Celtic IV. I don’t know whether we went off course, or by how much. I was nowhere near the bridge when it all went down. Coran, he… he shoved me into an escape pod and then went to see how he could help the others. That’s just who he was. I guess I blacked out in the pod, from shock or fear or something - I don’t know how long…” Lance cut himself off, taking a deep breath of air before speaking again. “When I came to, I was here.”

“Uh,” Keith fumbled for a response that would be at all appropriate for the amount of information that Lance had just thrown at him. “Do you want to talk about Coran?” He finally settled on.

“Oh, yeah, maybe that would help,” Lance said, letting out a small stream of air. “Coran was… he was like the ‘cool uncle’ around the Atlas. The nicest, but also, I think, one of the smartest. Not in a showy way, but in that way of, you know, if something was broken, he would know how to fix it. And, yes, even on a multi-billion-dollar starship, half the time the answer is apparently duct tape. But Coran was awesome. He never made anyone else feel stupid. I really appreciated that. I know that I’m hoping against hope, but I _really_ hope that Coran made it through this nightmare okay. I mean, I hope that _everyone_ did, obviously. But maybe I hope a _little_ extra hard for him.”

“Thank you for, uh, sharing that with me,” Keith said, clearing his throat. He couldn’t even imagine… just possibly losing everyone that you had served alongside for months?

“Hey, no,” Lance said, “thanks for listening to me blather on and on. That actually felt normal. Like I was telling my new friend about my old friend. Hey, maybe if this all turns out for the best, maybe we can all go get coffee sometime, I’m buying! Or, hell, if I make it out of this alive, I’ll have earned something a lot stronger than coffee.”

“I’ll take you for shots,” Keith said seriously, “you’ll have earned them.”

“Ugh, I’d say that anything sounds good after the Atlas’ rations, but… shots are terrible. I’ll stick with the fruity drinks. Speaking of which, I’m going to want to find something to eat and drink before long. I have this theory that it I just built an intersection here, competing Starbucks would magically appear on at least two of the corners. But I’d hate to go through all that work just to be proven wrong,” the teasing lilt had returned to Lance’s voice, and Keith found himself wondering how on earth the other boy could be so calm about being crashed on an abandoned moon.

“Well,” Keith drawled, “if there aren’t any Starbucks around, then what is there?”

“Right! So my escape pod came down in some kind of desert. The ground is all cracked white rock. There’s a huge white peak a few miles away. Or, uh, kilometers, I guess. The others tried to get me to think in metric for the trip, but some things are just too hardwired, I guess. It’s weirdly symmetrical. The peak, I mean. Like it might not be a natural formation. My IEVA suit’s compass places the peak northeast,and then, in the opposite direction - to the south and southwest, to be precise - are two funnels of black smoke from what I have to assume are two pieces of the Atlas. Best case scenario, it’s _only_ in two pieces. The crash site looked closer than the peak. What do you think I should do?” Lance’s voice dropped at the end, sounding so _small_.

“You have to head for the crash sight,” Keith said immediately. “You need to find out if any of the other members of the crew survived.”

“Yeah, cool, that makes sense. Maybe some of the others are still okay… fingers crossed. It’s not actually possible to cross your fingers in an IEVA suit, so maybe you could handle the finger crossing? At the very least, there might be some supplies that I can use. Okay, I’m headed south now. Looks like the smoke is at least an hour away. Or whatever the metric equivalent of an hour is. I’ll let you know when I’m there.”

“Okay,” Keith said. “Be careful.”

He thought he heard Lance snort before the audio connection cut out, filling Keith’s ears with static.

He reached up, untangling his headphones from his neck, only leaving one of them in his ear just in case Lance contacted him again.

_Holy fuck_.

Had that… really just happened? Had he early just talked to one of the missing members of the Atlas crew?

Oh god… shouldn’t he do something to help Lance? Tell someone?

But who?

The Garrison had already proven that they couldn’t be trusted. They had covered up the disappearance of the Kerberos, after all. What if they were the ones who had been behind the crash in the first place? Telling them that Lance had survived might put him in even more danger!

Keith reached over for his laptop, dragging it into his lap and flipping it open. He launched Skype, quickly pressing on Pidge’s contact name.

The loading screen whirled while he waited to see if Pidge was still awake enough to take his call or not. Finally, the call connected and Pidge’s face appeared onscreen, their glasses pressed close to the screen.

“Keith?” They questioned. “Is everything alright?”

“It worked,” Keith said, not sure where else to start.

“What worked?” Pidge asked, arching a brow.

“Your app! The one you installed on my phone.”

Pidge rocked back slightly. “Seriously?” They asked, sounding _way_ too excited for how late it was.

Keith nodded.

“Well, don’t leave me hanging! What did you pick up on?”

Keith let out a hiss of air. “An S.O.S. call from one of the crew members of the Atlas.”

Pidge’s eyes bugged out of their head. “ _No way_.”

Keith nodded. “The ship crashed onto some moon, _Pidge_ , what do I do? Should I tell someone? I mean, what if the Garrison was involved somehow? I don’t know what to do!”

“Start from the beginning,” Pidge instructed.

So Keith did.

< < < > > >

“You can’t tell anyone,” Pidge declared, once Keith had finished recounting the events of the evening. There’s still nothing but a faint buzzing coming from his headphone, Lance hadn’t tried to contact him again.

“I _have_ to! He’s a kid stuck up in space. I can’t just… not do anything!” Keith said, throwing his hands up.

“I heard you. I get that you… believe them, or whatever. But think about it logically, Keith. You don’t know that this kid is really who he claims to be, he could just be some college student jackass who’s making it all up,” Pidge pointed out.

Keith let his arms drop, deflating. “You didn’t hear his _voice_ , Pidge.”

“Keith,” Pidge said, sounding exasperated, “I _highly_ doubt that I _accidentally_ managed to create a two-way-radio that can pick up on signals that not even NASA can pick up on. I mean, I’m smart, but I don’t know that I’m _that_ smart.”

“I’m telling you, this kid… Pidge, I _believe_ him,” Keith said, leaning forward closer to the computer screen.

Pidge rolled their eyes. “People do crazy things on dares, Keith. I’m telling you, he’s faking it. And anyone you try to tell is going to react the exact same way. No one is going to believe you.”

“But if this kid is telling the truth… what if the crash of the Atlas has something to do with the disappearance of the Kerberos? We can’t just… ignore this.”

Pidge shook their head, their fluffy brown hair falling into their eyes. “It’s a hoax, Keith. Just like the Loch Ness Monster, okay? Just… try not to worry about it.”

And with that lovely closing line, Pidge clicked out of their chat.

Keith blinked at the sudden darkness of the screen. “ _Seriously?_ ” He asked his empty room, reaching up to run a hand through his hair.

“Holy crap,” a voice said suddenly, directly into his ear, enough to make Keith jolt and fall off his bed. “It’s a lot farther than it looked. My legs feel like Jell-O, and I’m only, like, halfway there. Great. Now all I can think about is how much I want Jell-O.”

Keith rubbed at his elbow, pushing himself up off of the floor. That had kind of hurt. He opened his mouth to respond, but the static had already returned, almost like Lance had never spoken at all.

Almost like Keith had imagined the whole thing.

< < < > > >

Keith was half asleep, his covers tangled between his legs, when Lance started to speak again.

He hadn’t been able to take out his headphones, despite how his ears protested, just in case Lance tried to talk to him again. Despite what Pidge had said, Keith couldn’t help but believe the voice on the other end of the line. He just… couldn’t shake the feeling that Lance was really in danger.

“Okay,” Lance said, his voice stirring Keith from his half-asleep state. “At long last, I’m in sight of the Atlas. Or… what’s left of it, at any rate. It seems to have cracked hard once it hit the atmosphere. Like I figured, it came down in two major chunks… with a _ton_ of scattered debris thrown around to make the whole scene look terrifying and post-apocalyptic. And in case anyone asks, it’s working. I’m appropriately terrified. Looks like the flight deck came down pretty far from the crew quarters. Where do you figure I should go first?”

Keith reached up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, as he tried to process what Lance had just told him. “Um… the flight deck, I think?” He said slowly.

“All right,” Lance said. “It’s gonna take me a few minutes to sort through the wreckage. A lot of the heat shielding was stripped on entry, but it seems to have taken most of the damage. It seems like most of the instrumentation is surprisingly intact. Let me just poke through this mess…”

Keith sat up, propping himself up with his pillow as he listened to the dull static that occured when Lance wasn’t actively broadcasting.

After a few minutes of silence, Keith reached over for his phone charger, plugging it in since his phone was already down to fifteen percent battery. The last thing he wanted was for his phone to die while he was waiting for Lance to start talking again.

A few minutes passed. Five, then ten, and Keith couldn’t help the fear blooming in his chest. Why was Lance taking so long to start talking again? What if something had happened to him?

Just as Keith’s thoughts were starting to spiral, the static in his ear was replaced by the warm tenor of Lance’s voice.

“Hot damn! We’re in business!” Lance enthused. “Well… I mean, if you keep in mind that most businesses fail before they ever really get off the ground… anyways… let’s play a round of Good News/Bad News. Good news: I found the ship’s distress beacon, and from what I can tell, it’s totally intact! Which means, hey, maybe I don’t have to be stuck here forever. More good news: one of the defense turrets is still operational. Yes, that means that there are three of them which _aren’t_ , but there’s only one of me to operate a turret, so in this case the math works out great. So that means that if the little green men _do_ come poking around, I’ll have more than pop-culture references to defend myself with! But now for the bad news: I’ve got no power for either the beacon or the guns. The reactor came down with the back half of the ship. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t pack any extension cords long enough to bridge that distance… and even if the reactor was right here, I seriously doubt that it’s in good enough shape to power much of anything. So I’m going to keep hunting in this end of the Atlas and see what kind of alternate power source I can dig up.”

Keith’s head spun at the sudden flood of information, “Maybe you can find some spare batteries,” he said wryly.

“Ha, ha,” Lance said. “Okay, wait, hold on the rubble is really bad right here.”

The static returned. It was quickly becoming Keith’s least favorite noise. At least when Lance was rambling at a mile a minute, he knew that the other boy was okay.

This… this was so much worse.

Keith glanced over at the alarm clock next to his bed.

_Fuck_. It was almost four in the morning. He had class in a few hours. But he would never be able to sleep knowing that Lance was still just… out there…

He had to do _something_ , tell _someone_. God, if only Shiro were here.

“Oh… oh, no,” Lance’s voice crackled over the speakers, followed by a ragged gasp for air. “I hadn’t found any of the crew up here near the flight deck, but… I just found Captain Allura. There’s just… so much blood, I wouldn’t have thought… OH HOLY HELL, she’s not dead! The Captain’s not dead! She’s got a huge piece of metal through her side, like a… a support strut or something… it doesn’t matter what it is! What do I do? Should I… do I pull it out? Oh, man, she is _really_ bleeding. Oh, man.”

“ _Don’t_!” Keith practically yelled, as soon as Lance stopped talking and he could speak. “Lance, whatever you do… don’t pull it out.”

“Okay, good plan,” Lance said, sucking in another deep breath of air. “Who knows what kind of damage I might do if I yanked it out? It’s… the wound isn’t really actively bleeding right now, but her breath is really shallow and kind of… rattling? Oh, man, I think there’s a good chance the thing pierced her lung. Crap, crap, crap. What am I supposed to do?”

“Lance,” Keith said slowly, “you need to stay calm. Look for a medkit, anything you can use to help her.”

“Yes. Okay. I can do that. There should be a medkit on the flight deck, I just have to find it,” Lance said, before the audio cut out once more.

Keith reached up, dragging his hands over his eyes. Even if Lance found a medkit… the probability that this… Captain Allura would survive was slim. And what would Lance do if he had to watch his captain die?

“The damn forward med supply cabinet is scorched over,” Lance growled, the audio returning. “I’d need a crowbar and a power drill… and with my luck, I’d injure myself so badly that I’d have to use all the contents on myself if I ever _did_ get it open. There’s another med locker in the rear of the ship, by the crew quarters, I’ve gotta go for that one.”

Keith flopped backwards onto his bed, nearly pulling his phone charger out of the wall. Fuck. He hated no knowing what was going on. There was too much adrenaline pumping through his veins for Keith to even be able to think about sleeping, so he sat back up with a groan. Well, if he wasn’t going to sleep, maybe he could work off some of his nervous energy by going for a jog around campus. His phone was up to forty percent, should be enough for a decent run.

< < < > > >

Keith was halfway through his usual five mile loop around the campus when the static in his ear (though he had switched out for a pair of _actual_ headphones that were much less painful, he had made sure the microphone was working, though) was replaced by Lance’s voice.

“Okay. Okay. I’m at the wreckage of the crew quarters. And, well, this isn’t totally unexpected, but… still… I, uh, I found some of the crew. It’s… oh man. Hang on.”

Keith sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, abruptly stopping mid-jog.

That… didn’t sound good. Whatever Lance had saw… it didn’t sound good.

“Sorry about that, I had to go be sick behind some moon rocks,” Lance’s voice returned, but the usual sass and mock-cockiness was gone, replaced instead by something that sounded unnaturally still and empty. “So, apparently there were a few crew members who were pretty near where the Atlas’ hull split. I can’t… I can’t tell who they were… or how many. They’re all sort of fused. To the metal, or, uh, each other. And we, I don’t know, we might have lost some of the crew when we lost pressure. Behind the sealed door to the rear quarters, though, I… uh… I found the rest of the crew. Romelle, Bandor, Hira, and… Coran. They’re all dead. All of them are just… dead. I-I don’t think that I can do this. Not-not knowing that all of them, every one of them… I just…”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Keith hissed, slumping up against the nearest building. “Fuck, Lance, I am _so_ sorry.”

What do you say to someone who just found their crew, people they lived alongside for… weeks, months, at a time, dead? What else was there to say? Keith supposed that there probably weren’t words.

“Ugh. This is… this is awful. Part of me was hoping that they would still be okay, but… oh, man. I feel like I should have some sort of memorial service, you know? Like… they deserve that.” Lance’s voice was quiet, small. In the brief time since Keith had been talking to him, he had never sounded so _defeated_.

“You don’t have time. Captain Allura is still alive, Lance, you _have_ to focus on that. If there’s something, anything, you can do to help her… now is your only chance.”

Lance sucked in a deep breath of air. “Right. You’re right. I can still help Allura. Let me just see… Okay. So time for another round of Good News/Bad News. Bad news: no medkit that I could find. I could get into the cabinet just fine, but… the kit is gone. Someone must have taken it out for something and not put it back before the crash. So it’s probably still around… somewhere. But! Good news: the Atlas has two medical stasis pods on board! One is pretty much just scrap metal now - bad news - but the other is still intact, and all the functions have a green light! How do I know, you might ask? Because, my friend, I also found a portable generator! And then I did a little portable generator dance. It’s small, but it’s enough to keep the stasis pod running for days. And the pod might not be able to heal Allura, but it’ll keep her wounds in check and stop her lung from getting any worse. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass to haul the stasis pod and the generator back to the Captain, though. Do you think I should bring her here or try to get the rig back to her?”

“You shouldn’t move her. You’ll risk moving the pipe and having her bleed out. Just… bring the stasis pod to her,” Keith said, blowing his hair off of his face.

This was… a woman’s life was in their hands right now. If he said the wrong thing, if Lance did the wrong thing… there was a very good chance that she could die.

“Right,” Lance was saying. “That’s the safer plan. So long as I can figure out some way to get this pod over there quickly. You know, something that would be handy on these things would be a - nope. Nope. Nope. A-ha! _Yes_! A hover mode. Well, this might suck some extra power from the generator, but I’m not going to look a gift hover-horse in the mouth. That’s exactly how that saying goes, right? Okay, I’m heading back to Allura, I’ll message you once she’s safe and sound.”

Lance’s voice cut off and the damn static returned. Keith grit his teeth. Would it kill the kid to keep his freaking communicator turned on?

Keith glanced at the time on his phone, just a little past five. No wonder it was starting to seem brighter out. It was finally a (not quite) socially acceptable hour to be awake.

And now that he was standing still and not running, Keith was _exhausted_. There would be no _way_ he made it through his classes today. And with everything going on with Lance, Keith didn’t think that he would be able to focus on his classes, anyways. What would he do if Lance tried to contact him while Professor Iverson was lecturing about flight simulations?

Well, he would probably just walk out of the class to be honest.

Still, maybe it would be better to just email his professors and say he was sick, that way he could hold up in his dorm room and wait for Lance to open communication again.

He could always borrow the notes from Pidge.

< < < > > >

“She’s in!” Lance’s relieved voice burst through Keith’s phone speakers. (He had given up on wearing headphones since he was alone in his dorm). “And the pod says that she’s stabilized! Blood loss is dangerous, but not at critical levels yet, and this should keep the lung perforation from getting any worse. Oh, man, I’m not alone on this stupid rock. This feels like a miracle.”

Keith felt a tentative smile stretch over his own lips, this was the first bit of good news that Lance had since the crash.

“Oh man, I’m exhausted,” Lance continued. “I feel like I could sleep for a century.”

“If anyone’s ever deserved a rest, it’s you,” Keith replied.

“Yeah, you know, taking a break is probably a good idea. All this trekking back and forth, burning calories… I was trying to ignore how exhausted I was, but taking a quick break sounds like a smart idea. Just a little catnap. Or, you know, the metric equivalent. A chinchilla-nap.”

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith whispered, but he had a feeling that the line had already gone dead. He glanced at his clock. Six o’clock. He could grab a few hours of sleep while Lance did and prevent his sleep schedule from getting totally fucked.

Keith collapsed backwards onto his bed, keeping his phone turned on and nearby so he would hear Lance when he inevitably started talking again. The guy knew how to ramble. It was almost impressive.

Keith let his eyelids flutter shut, trying not to picture punctured lungs and dead bodies and crashed spaceships. Trying not to hear Lance’s defeated voice saying “I don’t think I can do this” over and over again.

< < < > > >

“Believe it or now, I actually feel better after sleeping a little,” Lance’s voice said, dragging Keith out of sleep. “The pod still says that Allura is stable, which is great. But ‘stable’ doesn’t mean ‘better’. Plus, I’ve still got to figure out how to get us rescued, and get her some real medical attention. In the meantime… what? I guess I should see to the rest of the crew, right? I mean, they’re just… lying there. I’m heading back to the other half of the ship, bringing Allura in her stasis pod and the generator with me. I’ll contact you once I’m there.”

Lance’s voice cut off, replaced by the static.

Keith glanced at the clock. Eight in the morning. He _could_ go to class. Or he could catch up on another half hour of sleep while Lance hiked to the other half of the Atlas. Keith let his eyes flutter shut.

There was no way that anything Professor Iverson had to say was more important than what Lance was going through. He’d rather be around when Lance finally contacted him again.

< < < > > >

“-after a depressing trudge across a barren wasteland, we arrive once more at a crewless crew quarters,” Lance narrated. “My life has become bad middle-school poetry. So I guess my options over here are either grave-digging, or exploring the ship further.”

Keith pushed himself onto his elbows, snatching his phone up from where it was resting on his dresser. “You should dig the graves, your friends deserve a proper burial.”

“All right,” Lance said, and Keith could practically _hear_ him nodding. “Here goes. I’m going to get the rest of the graves dug and inter the crew, which I think will be a really good thing. Just to have some sense of closure, you know? I want to come up with a few words to say over each of them. I’m gonna take a little private time while I work.”

The audio connection clicked off before Keith could say anything. Damn, it was annoying when he did that.

Keith reached up to rub his eyes. He was awake now. Two and a half hours of sleep was hardly enough to run on, but coupled with one of those pre-made cold-brew coffees he kept in his mini fridge…

Keith pushed out of bed, crossing the short distance to his mini fridge and pulling out one of the coffee drinks, grabbing a pop tart from the open box on top of his fridge for good measure. He stuck the coffee under his armpit so he could tear open the pop tart wrapper, wandering over to his desk.

Now that he didn’t actually have Lance to talk to, Keith couldn’t help his thoughts by being preoccupied by… well, Lance. Or, really, the idea that the crash of Lance’s ship might be connected to the crash of the Kerberos. And if he was waiting for Lance to start talking again, then it really wouldn’t hurt for Keith to work on an updated version of his “stalker board,” right?

Keith dropped into his desk chair, resting his coffee on the table and taking another bite of his chocolate fudge pop tart. With his free hand, Keith pushed open his laptop, launching Google Chrome as soon as the computer was booted up.

A few prompts to the search bar brought up a list of articles about the SS Atlas, the more recent ones about its disappearance, but Keith clicked to the ones further back. The ones about the launch.

There was one that caught his eye, it was from the Garrison’s website. The one that he and Pidge had passed over so casually.

_Garrison Student Lance Álvarez Declared Missing-in-Action After the Disappearance of the SS Atlas_

_The Garrison Chronicles_

Keith pulled open the article in a new tab, before continuing to skim through the older articles. There had to be one from…

There.

_Garrison Student Lance Álvarez Makes History by Joining the Crew of the SS Atlas_

_The Garrison Chronicles_

Keith let the article load, taking another bite of his pop tart and opening his coffee.

_This Thursday, the successful launch of the SS Atlas marks a new day in human history. Notably because the ship was the first outer space venture carrying a minor, seventeen-year-old Garrison science student Lance Álvarez. Álvarez is an aerospace engineering major who plans to use the trip as an opportunity to study the effects of Zero-G on mice and other small life forms._

_We sat down with Álvarez shortly after he received the invitation to join the highly skilled crew of the SS Atlas, led by Captain Allura Altea._

_Garrison Chronicles: Lance, you’ve been given an incredible opportunity. But you already know that, we want to talk about you, give the readers a chance to get to know their fellow student who will be flying in outer space, something almost every student at the Garrison dreams of doing!_

_Lance Álvarez: Um, well, I’m from Miami, Florida. But my family is originally from Cuba. I study aerospace engineering, and I actually want to pilot spacecrafts some day. Like Takashi Shirogane did back before his ship went missing, that dude was my hero._

Keith paused, even though he was barely a quarter of the way through the article, shocked by the sudden mention of his brother. After the Kerberos went missing, presumably because it crashed, a lot of people _blamed_ Shiro. Hardly anyone still… admired him the way that Garrison students used to.

And Lance had said missing. He hadn’t said crashed. Almost everyone else said crashed.

It made Keith like him just a little bit more.

_GC: You want to be a pilot, yet the lottery was for a science student to join the crew of a ship so that they would have a unique experience in which to perform their experiments. Do you think your focus on piloting will affect the experience that you have aboard the Atlas?_

_LÁ: Definitely! But not in a bad way. This is a chance for me to be aboard an actual spaceship, to see how the crew interacts, learn how to operate the different parts of the ship first hand rather than reading about it in a textbook. Sure, I’m also going to be running Zero-G experiments on mice so I can write my thesis paper, but the trip is about so much more, ya know?_

_GC: Well that sounds great! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Do you have anything else that you’d like to say?_

_LÁ: Um, I guess just a thank you to my parents for being so cool about me going to study in space for, like, a year! And thanks to the universe for helping me win the lottery of students._

_GC: Fair enough! It was great talking to you, Lance._

_LÁ: Likewise! Alright if that’s everything, I guess I had better start packing. Think I’m allowed to bring my toothbrush to space?_

Keith scrolled back up to the top of the article. Lance Álvarez. An aerospace engineering major. Honestly, it was amazing that they had never met. Although… Keith wasn’t sure that he would know if they had. He wasn’t the best at names, or socialization, and frankly hardly knew any of his classmates. Still, Pidge hadn’t reacted like they had known Lance’s name the first time the article was brought up.

Keith hesitated for a second, before he pulled up a new tab and copied and pasted Lance’s name into the search bar.

Almost immediately a link appeared to profiles named “Lance Álvarez” on Facebook. Keith clicked on it, scrolling through the profile pictures to see if anyone stuck out to him.

Oh.

There.

_Lance Álvarez_

_Miami, Florida_

_Studies at the Galaxy Garrison_

The profile picture appeared to be of a boy standing facing the ocean, his back to the camera so that all Keith could see was tan shoulders and short, curly hair.

What a huge invasion of privacy, Keith thought as he clicked onto the profile page.

Lance’s cover photo was a group shot of what had to be his family, but it was _huge_! So many people were crowded into the frame that it was hard to tell them apart.

Keith scrolled down further. There was the name of Lance’s high school, his hometown, his relationship status (single). Normal teenager things.

The photos he had chosen as his memories were normal as well. Selfies with a darker skinned guy with black hair, another family photo, a photo of himself in the awful Garrison uniform they had to wear for formal occasions.

And now, now that Keith could see him closer, he had to admit that he had never met the guy. Because if he _had_ , he would _definitely_ remember him. Since apparently Lance was (in addition to being stranded on some moon in the middle of nowhere with the promise to go for drinks if, no, _when_ he finally returned) _extremely_ hot.

Keith quickly backed out of the photos, feeling kind of creepy for looking, choosing to scroll through Lance’s timeline, instead. A lot of it was links to articles about the SS Atlas failing to check in, people wishing for his safe return, a long post from his mother about praying for him. But slowly the posts about the Atlas gave way to regular things like memes he shared and pictures of his Starbucks coffee.

He was just a kid.

And he was stuck in outer space.

With no one but Keith, one-time school drop-out, conspiracy theorist, thousands of light years away Keith, to help him.

Keith closed out of the tab, unable to take another selfie of Lance’s smiling face. He never should have looked.

< < < > > >

“Well, that’s it,” Lance’s voice, when it came through the speakers of Keith’s phone, was a welcome relief from the wall of connected articles he had been looking at for the better part of an hour now. “Everyone is buried. I guess there’s nothing for it but to keep exploring this end of the ship. Okay, so… past the bunks, there’s a corridor that branches. The way to the galley looks pretty scorched. The other option is the lab. I’m afraid of what I’ll find when I check on my mice. If the humans didn’t make it, what chance did those little guys have?”

“You should try to check the lab, there might be more medical supplies in there, and those could be useful,” Keith replied.

It was harder now, listening to Lance’s voice after seeing the pictures of him happy and smiling with his family and friends. He wasn’t just some nobody, some random person, anymore. He had people who were looking for him, who _missed_ him, and Keith could _do_ something, _anything_ about it. But he was still hesitating.

Why was he still hesitating?

“Well, it’s time to play Good News/Bad News. Good news: all my handwritten notes on the maze-running and food-seeking habits of mice in various gravities? They’re _totally intact_. So you can stop thinking that this whole trip was in vain, because we’ve got the goods. My senior thesis paper is going to be _amazing_. Bad news: their cage looks like it’s been through a cage match. Half crushed, warped from the heat. And the mice are nowhere to be found. I’d love to believe that they’ve escaped into the ducts and are currently about to start re-populating this barren moon, but… well, I’m going to leave my notes here, anyways. Who knows, maybe in a million generations, these could be this planet’s sacred texts. Good(ish) news? I won’t starve to death. I have mice food pellets and a half-full ball-spout water bottle. Look at that. I called it ‘half-full’. Feelin’ more optimistic already. So… I guess I can count my blessings and snack on rat food for a while… or that could be a good ‘plan B’ while I try to hunt down some people food.”

Keith wrinkled his nose at the idea of eating mice pellets, when you were desperate, you were desperate, but… “I would try and hunt down some people food.”

“Okay sounds good,” Lance replied.

His audio cut out for a few minutes, but Keith had to admit that it was good to hear Lance being slightly more upbeat than he had been earlier.

“The door to the galley is _super_ stuck,” came Lance’s reply, his breath sounding short, like he was winded all of a sudden. “Fortunately, I am _not_ above bashing it with scrap metal. Because, I can say pretty confidently, that I don’t think we’re getting our deposit back on this ship. I’m gonna keep at this for a bit because it’s my best bet at finding rations. If I can just get through this… _damn_ … door.”

The familiar chime of an incoming FaceTime call interrupted Keith before he had time to worry about what he should do, and he was grateful for the distraction as he accepted the call on his laptop.

Immediately Pidge’s mop of brown hair and circular glasses filled the screen. “You didn’t come to class today.”

It wasn’t a question.

“... No,” Keith admitted slowly.

“You don’t look sick,” Pidge frowned at him.

“I just didn’t sleep well,” Keith said with a huff, brushing his bangs away from his face.

“Insomnia again?” Pidge asked. “You need to stop drinking so much coffee.”

“That’s not what it was,” Keith said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest.

Pidge narrowed their eyes in suspicion. “Are you still talking to that kid?”

“Of course I am!” Keith threw his hands up into the air, “he’s _stuck_ on an abandoned moon. He needs help. Or hell, just someone to talk to.”

“He’s just catfishing you!” Pidge said, “I don’t understand why your so invested in this.”

“And I don’t understand why you’re _not_ ,” Keith shot backwards. “This is our chance to learn if the disappearance of the Kerberos is connected to the crash of the Atlas. This could be how we find Shiro, Matt, your dad.”

Pidge let out a soft huff. “I can’t… I can’t get my hopes up like that, Keith. Not without actual proof.”

“Okay, I don’t want to say that this is _impossible_ , because that seems like I’m exaggerating,” Lance’s voice said, emerging from Keith’s phone speakers.

Keith glanced between the phone and Pidge, who was staring at their computer camera with wide eyes.

“Is that him?” Pidge asked.

Keith nodded. He knew that Lance couldn’t hear Pidge’s question since the two-way radio format only allowed one of them to talk at a time and Lance was still rambling.

“-just say that getting into this gallery is _highly_ improbable. It’s starting to get late, anyways. The sun, or, um, star - Tau Ceti, I think, is getting really low on the horizon. I need to think about bedding down for the night. So what do you think, keep bashing at this improbable door in the hopes that it gives out before I do? Or forget it for now and figure out my sleeping arrangements?”

“Keep trying the door, you need to find some real food or your stay on the moon isn’t going to be very long,” Keith said, even though his eyes never left Pidge’s.

“Man, you’re a sucker for punishment as long as it’s someone else’s, right? All right, against my better judgment, I’ll take another swing at it.”

Lance’s audio connection cut off, replaced by the static.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Pidge said, their voice faint. “That… that was really Lance.”

Keith blinked at them in shock. “Did you… _Pidge_ , did you _know_ him?”

“Not really,” Pidge admitted. “We were lab partners freshman year. But… that was his voice. _Shit_. Keith, you’ve really made contact with one of the survivors from the Atlas’ crash!”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Keith said. “What… what do you think I should do? Should I talk to someone at the Garrison?”

Pidge brought their hand to their mouth and started to chew on their thumb nail. “I don’t know. I still don’t trust them. It seems suspicious that you were able to pick up a broadcast that they didn’t, almost like they were ignoring it. It’s just… you might be putting him in more danger if you do.”

Keith slumped against the back of his chair. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“I totally pulled my shoulder out of joint!” Lance’s voice interrupted them. “And it was totally worth it! Because I am in a great deal of pain, _while at the same time_ eating chili macaroni and drinking bottled water. This chili mac is kind of nasty, but it’s also kind of the best thing I’ve ever eaten. It’ll be gone soon, sadly… and then I’ll have to deal with the shoulder that I repeatedly hammered against a dead hydraulic door to get to the chili mac. But that’s a problem for three-minutes-from-now-Lance. And I think we can _all_ agree that this beats mouse food any day. So I’ve got food and water taken care of, and mouse pellets as a fallback plan. All right, let’s think through what my next move is. The crew is all buried. The stasis pod is humming along nicely, keeping Allura alive and well. Or… at least alive. Still, as long as the generator is powering the pod, there’s no way for me to fire up either the distress beacon or the gun turret. I’m not so worried about the turret, I seriously doubt there’s anything else living on this rock besides me… but without the beacon, how will anyone know I’m here and alive? How will I ever get rescued?”

Keith shared a glance with Pidge through the Skype screen. He… one conversation and he could let the whole world know that Lance was alive. But if the Garrison and NASA were involved in covering up the reason for the crash… would that be any better?

“You let me worry about getting you off that rock, Lance,” Keith told him, hoping his voice sounded firmer than he thought it did. “Keep the generator plugged in and the Captain safe. I’ll…” he hesitated, he didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep. “I’ll do what I can to help you from down here.”

“Right,” Lance said, sounding relieved. “You’re on Earth, you can actually _do_ something about the fact that I’m stuck up here. And there’s no way I’d let Allura die, not after everything I went through to save her. And maybe in the daylight tomorrow, I’ll be able to figure out some way to get the beacon working so the rescue craft will know exactly where to land. Some part of me thinks that they picked the wrong science student for this trip. Or maybe I picked the wrong trip. Either way, this has gotta be worth some bonus points on my final grade. Tau Ceti is down now, and I don’t mind telling you it’s darker than a goth kid’s journal. So, um, here are my options, as I see them. I can stay here in the wreckage - although without power to the ship, I can’t reseal any door that I’ve opened. So I’ll have a roof over my head, sure, but I’ll be exposed to the elements. Or, I can head around to the rear of the ship and pitch a tent near the reactor engine… which is nice and toasty warm - I can tell from the squiggly heat lines its sending off into the night. You like that science speak? ‘Squiggly heat lines?’ That’s some advanced-level terminology, right there. Only problem there is, there’s radiation involved in that engine, and I’m not precisely sure whether it’s enough to roast me overnight. So would you mind doing a little homework for me? If I get about 150 rads overnight, will that kill me? My IEVA suit sensor tells me that’s what it’s giving off. Can you look that up and let me know whether it will toast my marshmallows? Thanks.”  

“Um, sure,” Keith said.

Lance’s audio cut out with a click.

Keith turned to Pidge. “Did you get that?”

Pidge nodded. “I’m already on it. Just give me… one… second…”

Their fingers flew across the keyboard for the desktop computer off to the side (because the laptop they were currently skyping from wasn’t enough for Pidge). “I think I actually know the kind of reactor that he was talking about… and… if these calculations are correct. 150 rads should be fine for the human body.”

Keith tapped his screen, wishing there was some way for him to initiate contact with Lance, but since Lance didn’t have his line open, he would just be talking to thin air. Well, and Pidge.

In the end, it took almost twenty minutes for Lance to contact them again, which was ridiculous because Pidge had only needed minutes to complete their calculations.

“So, uh, hopefully you had a chance to look that up, because it’s getting really, stupidly cold here. What’s the verdict? Should I just layer up under whatever cover I can find and spend a night shivering in the wreckage of the Atlas? Or risk radiation poisoning by cuddling up to a faulty fusion reactor?” Lance asked, trying to sound humorous, but Keith could hear the undercurrent of worry.

“You can camp out by the reactor. That amount of rads shouldn’t affect you,” Keith said, while Pidge nodded on the computer screen.

“I gotta be honest with you: I’m really nervous about this. I mean, you’ve gotten me through this day so far - definitely the worst day of my entire life. I’d put it up against the worst day of pretty much _anybody’s_ life, pretty confidently. So I’m going to trust you on this. I mean, either you looked it up and you know that I’ll be safe at these radiation levels… or else you didn’t bother to look it up, and you’re just blowing me off. I guess I won’t know until I wake up in the morning. And with that cheery thought, goodnight. Here’s to a better tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” Keith whispered back, but Lance’s audio line had already closed.


	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well,” Lance’s voice broke through his thoughts. “It actually didn’t take as long to get around the crater as I thought it might. Here’s the strange thing, though. Maybe fifty yards back, I tripped over something while I was walking. Yeah, I know, I’ve been so graceful so far, it must be hard for you to believe. Anyway, it was pretty well buried in the sand, but when I looked down at it… it glinted at me in the sun. Because it was metal. It took me a minute to dig it up, and I’ve been examining it ever since, but I’m still not sure what it is, exactly. I mean, I guess it’s got to be a panel from the Atlas… it’s just weird that it came down so far from the rest of the ship, huh?”
> 
> Keith frowned. “That is weird.”
> 
> “I know! Anyhow… I’ve… oh no way. Here’s something. I just had to climb over a little ridge, right? And on that ridge, there are more little pieces of metal. Like, several more. And then, just on the other side of that little ridge - where you can’t see it until you’ve completely crested the ridge - there’s… um… there’s a spaceship.” 
> 
> Keith felt his heart seize in his throat.
> 
> Another crashed ship.
> 
> Could it… could it be the Kerberos?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for your kind words about chapter one! I hope you like the second chapter, and as always feel free to drop comments or kudos down below, or come find me on twitter @slowklancing

**DAY TWO**

 

“Hey! Check it out! I’m not dead!” Lance’s voice almost eight hours later was a welcome relief. “I don’t even have an ear growing out of my forehead or any other weird toxic radiation mutation! Nice. Okay. Fresh new day, same old moon. Maybe I’m oversharing here, but I woke up with a _terrible_ taste in my mouth. Rinsed with some water, spit it out… and it had a weird green tint to it. Probably something to do with trace elements in this place’s atmosphere… but still, pretty strange right?”

Keith wiped at his eyes, wrinkling his nose. “Ugh, thanks for sharing.”

“Yeah, well,” Lance said, sounding slightly offended, “who _else_ am I supposed to talk to about this sort of thing? Feel free to tell me what your spit looks like, we’ll call it even.”

“My spit looks like normal spit,” Keith said. “Weirdo.”

“Well, well,” Lance drawled, “look who’s all high and mighty about their spit. Congratulations on having unremarkable saliva. Anyway, at least I’ve got rations to get the taste out of my mouth. I’m thinking a little maple sausage - closest thing to breakfast in these pouches.”

“That sounds delicious,” Keith said sarcastically, as he climbed out of bed and grabbed his own breakfast, or well, Keith glanced at the clock. Midnight snack. God, Lance was _really_ fucking up his sleep cycle. Double shot of espresso and poptarts it was again.  

“Yeah, I’m not sure that ‘delicious’ is the word I’m looking for right now. Maybe… sustenance? Ugh, and only barely. But it should hold body and soul together for today’s field trip. The generator is still humming along happily, powering the stasis pod… and Captain Allura is still stable inside. I’d prefered ‘healed,’ but oh well. I guess when it comes to miracle technology, you take what you can get. Anyway, with her stowed safely away, I can step out for a few hours. Should be plenty of time to go check out that strange peak to the north and still make it back to the Atlas before nightfall.”

“Do you think that’s safe?” Keith asked, using his teeth to pull open the foil package of the poptart.

“I don’t really have a lot of other options at the moment.”

Keith couldn’t see him, but he felt like Lance was shrugging.

“I’ll just make one more pass over the ship, make sure that everything’s locked down, and then I’m packing some mouse food and water, and heading out. I’ll keep you posted along the way.”

Keith glanced over at the red light of his alarm clock. “Okay. Be safe.”

Static replaced the comforting sound of Lance’s voice. Keith groaned. He _hated_ this. The waiting was the worst part. And it didn’t help that Lance’s sleep schedule seemed to be completely different than his own. At this point, it kind of seemed like he would be missing another day of classes. After all, what was the point of going to his lectures if he was just going to have to sprint out into the hallway to answer Lance anyways? He just needed a few days to get everything straightened out with Lance, and then life could go back to normal.

Of course, Keith had _no_ idea how he was supposed to straighten things out with Lance. The only ones with the resources to rescue the boy were the Garrison and NASA, but with the way they were hiding the real details of the Kerberos mission…

He could go to the media, but people might not believe him. Or the Garrison and NASA might try to spin it like he’s a student just seeking attention, like it’s a stupid prank, the same way that Pidge had.

But there wasn’t much that Keith could do to _actually_ help Lance from down on Earth. Sure, he could try to keep the other boy alive, but it wasn’t like Lance stood a huge chance of getting himself off that moon with nothing but a crashed ship and a captain in a stasis pod.

Keith let out a growl of frustration, tugging a hand through his bangs.

Why did he feel so _fucking_ helpless?

“Okay,” Lance’s voice crackled through his phone speakers. “I’m back to where my escape pod came down. Looks like it rolled over during the night. I guess the wind caught the ‘chute and dragged it a little ways? _Damn_. Must’ve been some pretty high winds. It moved probably ten feet. But, hey, that’s only… how many meters?”

Keith squeezed his eyes shut. “Um, three. I think.”

“Three meters,” Lance agreed. “Three doesn’t sound so far. Things are less freaky in metric.”

“How long do you think it will take you to hike to the peak?” Keith asked, pacing across the room. And what was Lance expecting to find, even if he could actually make it to the peak? He was stranded on a moon in the middle of space. What could there possibly be to find?

“Definitely a few hours,” Lance said, “the peak is pretty far away. But I should be able to make it back to the Atlas by nightfall…. Damn! Looks like the path I was on is blocked off. I was tracing this shallow canyon, but I hit this huge boulder. _Way_ too big to climb over.”

Keith swore. “Can you get around it?”

“I can give it a shot,” Lance replied. “Honestly, though, this terrain looks pretty unforgiving. Give me a minute.”

Keith paused his pacing just long enough to pop the tab on his double shot espresso, guzzling the drink quickly before tossing the empty can in the direction of his recycling bin. The coffee was like a jolt of adrenaline in his system, shaking off the last remaining grips of sleep.

“Listen,” Lance’s voice cut through the static. “There’s just no way around this thing. Not enough footholds to get even a few feet up it. Or ‘meters’ up it, or whatever. These canyon walls look like nothing but loose rock, too. And, this may come as a surprise to you, but as a science fair champ, I’m pretty much the definition of an ‘indoor kid.’ I don’t think I’m cut out for rock climbing. And definitely not in my IEVA suit.”

“No, don’t do that, that sounds like a good way to get yourself injured,” Keith said. “Can you double back? Find a way around the canyon?”   

“I’m going to have to,” Lance agreed. “The whole boulder situation looked like a death trap waiting to be sprung. There’s a gentle slope up the canyon wall, a few hundred yards back. No, I can’t rattle that off in metric. A hecto-bunch? A picobuttload? Whatever. I mean, I hate to lose time by doubling back, but I think it’s preferable to the whole ‘breaking a leg five thousand picobuttloads from the nearest hospital’ thing. So, anyways, off I go!”

Keith could tell that Lance was trying to stay as cheerful as he could, given the gravity of the situation, but he could already hear the threads of exhaustion slipping into the other boy’s voice. How much longer could Lance go on like this? Wandering a strange moon with nothing but mouse pellets, MRE rations and a couple of water bottles? Not very long.

Even if Keith did manage to get people to believe that Lance really was alive out there, would he even be alive long enough for a rescue mission to make it to him? Fuck. Probably not.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“So… I’m having one of those dilemmas that only people stranded on a moon can have,” Lance said sometime later, Keith wasn’t sure how long he had been staring at his “stalker board” trying to think of what to do, of what Shiro would do, but it had to have been close to half an hour. So far, he still hadn’t managed to come up with any solutions. “I’m standing at the lip of a huge crater. I mean _huge_. As in, like, if I weren’t terrified of dying alone in deep space at any given second, I’d take a moment to be really, really awed. Problem is, this marvel of geography is smack-dab in the middle of where I’m headed. So it’s either slog around the perimeter, making a big semicircle in one direction or the other, or else I try my luck easing down this side and then cut straight across. There’s certainly something to be said for the shortest distance between two possible points, but I don’t think people usually factor giant craters into that equation.”

“Don’t try to cut down the side, that sounds like a really good way to get yourself hurt, and there’s no one around to help you. If you walk around the perimeter, at least you probably won’t break an ankle or anything,” Keith said, pinching his nose. God, that would mean more time walking, but… what would they do if Lance hurt himself?

“All right,” Lance agreed. “You know, this is probably the safest call. All flat surfaces up here. Flat… dull… plain… planes. Wheee.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Look, the most exciting decision I’m anticipating in the next couple of hours is whether I should start off walking left or right. And since there isn’t a coin to toss, because, surprise, there are very few laundromats or arcades up here, I’m leaving this one up to you. Should I walk around this stupid hole in the ground clockwise or counterclockwise. Remember, this could be the most important decision you make all day. Spoiler alert: it won’t be.”  

“Counterclockwise,” Keith said on a whim. That would mean Lance would be walking to his… right, right? And when in doubt, aren’t you always supposed to go right?

“Wow! Counterclockwise? That is a very daring choice,” Lance said in an over-exaggerated, game-show-host voice. “As I take off marching to my right, in a big gigantic circle on an unknown moon in a poorly trafficked quadrant, know that your strong, clear decision-making skills have made all the difference. Clockwise sucks! Counterclockwise rules!” Lance chanted. “Those who swim against the tide get hit in the face with all the best fish! Or… something like that.”

“Is that a proverb?” Keith asked, wrinkling his nose.

“I don’t know, man.” He could almost picture Lance’s answering shrug. “Oh boy, I think I used up all of my enthusiasm, and I’ve still got an awful lot of walking left to do. I’ll message you when I get to the halfway point. If anything amazing happens though, don’t worry, I’ll let you know.”

The line clicked dead.

Damn, Lance really wasn’t a fan or goodbyes, was he?

“Stay safe,” Keith told the empty line anyways, shooting another glance at his clock. He could try to grab a couple more hours of sleep while Lance hiked, but he had just downed that espresso shot, so he had a feeling that sleep would evade him for some time.

Maybe he would do some more work on his “stalker board.” Where had Lance said the ship had been when it had gone down? Solar System NB-71? Was there any way that was close to where the SS Kerberos had gone dark?

Keith pulled out his cork board, propping it against the wall. It was covered in dozens of printed sheets of computer paper: snippets of articles and pictures from the internet, connected by red strings and thumb tacks. Pidge was right, it did look kind of suspicious, but it was also the easiest way for Keith to visualise all of his information.

The papers in the center of the board were all regarding the disappearance of the SS Kerberos, so Keith ignored the newer articles about the disappearance of the SS Atlas in order to reread what had happened to his brother’s spaceship.

According to the information released by NASA, the Kerberos had gone dark in… Solar System NB-71.

Holy fuck.

Holy actual fuck.

Keith grabbed his laptop, launching Skype and praying that Pidge was still awake.

“Pidge!” He said loudly, as soon as a pair of circular glasses glistened in the dark on the other side of the computer screen. “It’s Solar System NB-71!”

Pidge just blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Lance, right after the crash, he told me that he thought the Atlas had gone down somewhere in Solar System NB-71. And that’s the same solar system where NASA lost contact with-”

“Kerberos,” Pidge finished for him. “Holy shit, Keith. So… the crashes are related. They have to be. I mean, if the ships went down in the same solar system within just a few years of each other… and Lance survived the crash. Maybe that means that my dad and Matt did too. And Shiro. Still…” Pidge’s excitement tapered off. “Even if they did survive the crash, that was two years ago. Anything might have happened to them. They might have run out of food or water supplies… but this proves without a doubt that NASA and the Garrison are hiding something about the crash of the Kerberos. I can feel it. Uh, what is Lance doing now? Does he have any idea about how to get off the moon?”

“I don’t think so, I think… if anything, he’s probably counting on me for that, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to _do_. Right now, he’s just walking towards this weird… peak thing that he saw after the crash. I mean, I don’t know what he expects to find, but I guess it’s probably better than just sitting around and doing nothing.” Keith reached up and tugged at his hair.

“A weird peak? On an abandoned moon? That doesn’t make any sense?” Pidge frowned. “I’m going to try and hack into the Garrison servers and see if I can find anything else about Solar System NB-71, I’ll message you if I find anything.”

“Okay,” Keith agreed. “Can you cover for me with Iverson and tell him I’m still sick? There’s no way I would be able to concentrate in class right now.”

“Got it,” Pidge pushed their glasses up their nose, the blue from their computer screen reflecting in the glass. “But, Keith, you _do_ know that you’ll have to come back to class soon, right?”

“I know, I just need to figure out what to do first. Just… I just need a few more days.”

Pidge didn’t look convinced, but they nodded. “Okay. Goodnight, Keith.”

“Night, Pidge,” Keith said, before closing out of Skype.

There. That was how normal people ended a conversation.

As if Keith’s thoughts had summoned him, Lance’s voice crackled over the speakers of Keith’s shitty iPhone.

“Oh my _god_! You’ll never believe this. I’m still walking around a moon crater, and it’s still boring as hell!” Lance sighed dramatically. “Sorry. I was going a little bonkers, with nothing but the sound of my own thoughts.”

That was a feeling that Keith knew all too well. “You’re fine. Wanna chat?”

“Yes! Please,” Lance said too quickly. “I mean, I don’t want to be a bother, but you’re kind of all I’ve got. Wow. How needy is that? So, uh, have _you_ ever wandered around the circumference of a giant moon crater?”

“Sure,” Keith said dryly, dropping down into the chair on his desk and kicking up his feet. “All the time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lance questioned. “First time, for me. Maybe you can give me some travel tips. Any idea of where to score a quality mocha latte around here? I’m absolutely _useless_ before that first cup of coffee. Other situations in which I am apparently completely useless? Walking around a giant moon crater.” Lance sighed.

Keith glanced longingly at his empty doubleshot espresso can. “Now I want some coffee.”

“You know what? That’s totally fair,” Lance said. “Go on and get yourself a cup. Maybe pour a little out for your ol’ pal Lance, stranded at the cosmic crossroads. As for me, the crater’s opposite wall is in sight. I’m gonna buckle down, grit my teeth, and make my way on over there. Thanks for the talk. I’ll message you in a bit.”

Keith glanced over at his laptop, which was perched precariously close to the edge of his desk, wondering if Pidge was making any progress on breaking into the Garrison’s servers. He hoped they were. Maybe then they would actually get some helpful information, something they could use to _help_ Lance.

“Well,” Lance’s voice broke through his thoughts. “It actually didn’t take as long to get around the crater as I thought it might. Here’s the strange thing, though. Maybe fifty yards back, I tripped over something while I was walking. Yeah, I know, I’ve been so graceful so far, it must be hard for you to believe. Anyway, it was pretty well buried in the sand, but when I looked down at it… it glinted at me in the sun. Because it was _metal_. It took me a minute to dig it up, and I’ve been examining it ever since, but I’m still not sure what it is, exactly. I mean, I guess it’s _got_ to be a panel from the Atlas… it’s just weird that it came down so far from the rest of the ship, huh?”

Keith frowned. “That is weird.”

“I know! Anyhow… I’ve… oh no way. Here’s something. I just had to climb over a little ridge, right? And on that ridge, there are more little pieces of metal. Like, _several_ more. And then, just on the other side of that little ridge - where you can’t see it until you’ve completely crested the ridge - there’s… um… there’s a spaceship.”  

Keith felt his heart seize in his throat.

Another crashed ship.

Could it… could it be the Kerberos?

Could Keith _finally_ get the answers he was looking for?

Was this the truth that NASA and the Garrison had tried to hide for two years?

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, his tongue felt like lead in his mouth. Was Lance waiting for him to respond? Keith wasn’t sure that he could form words if he tried.

“So… yeah.” Lance’s voice crackled back through the speakers. “It’s a good thing that the air here is okay to breathe, because I’ve been hyperventilating it for the last minute or so. What the hell? I mean… I mean, what the _hell_? Seriously, just, what the hell? I was a science student, not an English student. Forgive me. From up here, I can tell it’s a much smaller ship than the Atlas. It’s what they call a caravel-class vessel, I think. It would’ve had a half dozen crew, tops, making quick runs with minimal armament. Minimal defenses.”

The Kerberos had been a small ship, only three crew members. A mining ship. Sent to find mineral samples. They would have had minimal armament. Minimal defenses.

“What is it doing here? How long has it been here? The engine looks like it was just… _sheared_ from the rest of the ship. Did they collide with space debris, maybe? God. I have about a million questions. Should I go down and explore the wreckage, do you think? Or do I keep to higher ground, and stay the hell away from that ship and whatever brought it out of the sky?”

Keith cleared his throat. “You have to explore it. Can you… can you see a name on the ship anywhere?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Let me get a little closer. This is crazy. What I’m doing right now, heading down _towards_ this derelict ship instead of away from it… it’s _crazy_. I mean, this is the part in every single horror movie where I’d be watching the idiot on screen and muttering to myself, ‘Well, I sure wouldn’t do that if _I_ were you.’ Except that right now, _I’m_ the idiot on the screen. Seriously, shouldn’t I walk away now before the killer in the space-hockey-mask from Camp Mare Tranquillitatis jumps out and stabs me? Or, worse, forces me to play space-hockey? I’m _terrible_ at sports.”

Keith forced himself to take a deep breath, but his voice still sounded hoarse when he spoke again. “No, no. Lance, you _need_ to explore that wreck.”

Was this being selfish? Was he putting Lance in danger for no reason?

There wasn’t any tangible proof that it was the Kerberous, but… there wasn’t any proof that it _wasn’t_ the Kerberous, either.  

“All right. Fine. But if I get serial-killed in there, it’s on you. Hell, even if I’m just maimed, nonserially, I’m gonna be upset. Okay. It was really surprisingly easy to get down from the ridge. A little _too_ easy. I seriously hate everything about what is happening in my life at this moment. So, the hull of this thing is pretty badly beaten. There’s some writing, but it isn’t too legible. It looks like Chinese characters? Or Japanese? There’s too much paint missing to be sure.”

Keith let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The Kerberos was an American ship. The writing should have been in English. “It’s not the Kerberos?” He asked, just because he had to be sure.

He heard Lance suck in a deep breath. “I’m sure. Why… why would you even ask that? Everyone always said that the Kerberos… crashed. Oh my god. Oh my _god_. Solar System NB-71. That’s where the Kerberos ship went dark, isn’t it? So you’re telling me that my ship… that the Atlas crashed down in the same solar system that the Kerberos went missing in? Oh my god, I’m going to be sick.”

“Lance, Lance, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. Just take a deep breath, okay? Tell me what else you see.” Anything to get that cold chill out of Lance’s voice.

“Right,” Lance said, but the words seemed forced. “The metal isn’t overly oxidized. This ship hasn’t been here that long. Ugh, my stomach is doing flips, just looking at the exterior. I’m sweaty and ice-cold all at once. Either that maple sausage wasn’t the greatest breakfast in the world, or this is the creepiest thing I’ve ever encountered. The airlock looks like it’s open just wide enough for me to crawl inside. But I’m looking for any reason in the universe _not_ to do it.”

“There might be supplies inside, you have to check,” Keith told him, wincing slightly as he said the words. He couldn’t even imagine what Lance would be feeling right now.

“Okay,” Lance said. “Deep breath. Switching on the IEVA suit’s helmet light, because it’s dark as pitch inside this ship. _Of course_ it’s dark in here. How could it terrify me to my core if it weren’t dark in here? Ouch! Let me tell you, I sure didn’t do my banged-up shoulder any favors trying to get through that door. Looks like the ship was shaken around pretty hard. There’s stuff all over the floors, falling out of bins and cabinets. It’s slow going, having to pick my way through all this debris with only a headlamp to navigate by. So, I can tell you this just from here. The instrument panels are smashed to splinters. And then the splinters are smashed to splinters. I had some hopes that maybe this thing had a functional distress beacon, but that notion just went out the proverbial window. Anyways, right now I seem to be in a sort of pass-through. I guess I’ll try the east hall first.”

Keith listened to Lance’s description of the interior of the ship, while he grabbed his laptop and pulled open Skype, typing a message to Pidge.

_talking to lance rn. just found another crashed ship. not kerberos. chinese or japanese caravel-class vessel. seemed like a pretty recent crash. heard anything about that?_

“Okay,” Lance narrated. “Turning right, we head down the lovely, not lovely, and spacious, definitely not spacious, east hallway. On either side of me is a sealed door. Without any power to get behind the pneumatics, I don’t stand a chance in hell at getting these open, so I guess it’s… huh. That’s strange. I just noticed that the compass on my IEVA suit still claims I’m headed north, even though I took a hard right turn down this hall. That’s… kinda messed up.   

“Is there anyway you can get it working again?”   


“Not in the middle of this wreck. I’m going to need to keep moving. Man, if I were a character in a horror movie I was watching, I would be so _pissed_ watching myself keep walking further into this wreck. I can practically hear myself yelling at myself for proceeding down the hall. ‘You’ve got a faulty compass,’ I’m shouting at myself. ‘You can barely see where you’re going!’ ‘Your headlamp is starting to flicker, because you’re a character in a bad horror movie!’ Oh. Crap. My headlamp is starting to flicker.”

Keith cursed. “Keep moving, Lance. Faster.”

“Sure, that’s great advice,” Lance said dryly. “‘Oh, you’re doing something stupid? Well, then, just do it _faster_.’ No one ever went wrong by pursuing that particular strand of logic. There’s an open door at the end of the hall. That’s where I’m headed. The light on my suit is strobing like I’m at a rave. Any second now, I’m expecting a pounding bass beat to kick in. Maybe tonight a DJ will save my life. Geez. This door it… just barely open enough… for me to slip inside the next room. I’d better hope there’s not a buffet on the other side. If I gain an ounce, I’ll never get back through.”

“Can you make it?” Keith asked. He wasn’t sure when he had started, but he realized he had begun to bite his nails. He pulled his hands away from his mouth.

“Ugh. They should have sent a contortionist, not a science student. Anyhow, I’m in. This looks like a pretty basic sick bay. I say that because I found a medkit in here. And inside the medkit was a bottle - a large bottle - labeled in both Mandarin and English, so I could tell it was painkillers. Which, I thought, yay! Because my shoulder hurts like there’s no tomorrow. There may legitimately be no tomorrow. Fun thought. But the bottle is almost empty. It would make a nice maraca, but there are only three pills in it. I’m not here to judge, but someone on this ship must’ve had a pretty serious problem. Or else… they downed a whole bunch of pills rather than face whatever brought the ship down. Nope. That’s officially too dark. Not gonna think in that direction. With the pain in my shoulder, I could certainly justify taking one of these pills now to make things easier. But then again, things could always get worse later. I might want to hang onto them.”   

“Hold back for now,” Keith said. “You might need them later.”

“Yeah, all right, maybe that’s smart. I’ll hang onto the pills for the time being. If the last couple of hours have taught me anything, it’s that, no matter how bad things seem at the moment, they could always get worse later. Crap. My headlamp is really flickering badly. I think I should get out of here before it fails me completely.”

“You have to keep exploring, Lance. You need to find some more food. Human food. And water, if there is any.”

“I am _so freaking nervous_ about staying here any longer… hey! Check it out! A whole drawer full of glow rods! Okay, there’s no way you possibly could’ve known these were here, but still, I have to hand it to you… you were right to tell me to stay. I’m gonna crack a couple of these and shake ‘em like they wronged me. Not it really _does_ look like a rave! Plus there are ten more glow rods here that I can stash for later. Nice! Suddenly I don’t feel so freaked out by the dark anymor-”

“Lance?” Keith asked hesitantly.

“ _What the hell was that_?” Lance screeched.  “Oh god. Okay. Oh god. Uh, there was this… I don’t know, this, like, scuttling type of noise. Coming from behind me. Out in the corridor. And I turned around. And, and… I saw something. Something moving. Something _glowing_. Glowing green. Lots of little somethings, actually. Close to the ground. Glowing, and moving, and scuttling. Which are three things that are way, way high on my list of stuff I was _not expecting to see_ today, if I’m being honest. I don’t think I’m alone in this ship. I gotta get the hell out of here.”

“No, Lance, you need to find out what it is.”

“Are you kidding me?! Like I want to go _chasing after_ whatever that was! Seriously, you didn’t hear it. I did, and it was freaky as anything. Like, ‘Don’t follow me into the dark’ freaky. That’s the worst kind of freaky, in case you’re keeping track.”

“Lance, you need to know what else is on that ship with you. If… if there’s some form of alien life on that moon, then you need to know.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Lance mourned. “I just want that on the record. That way, when they find my body all chopped in half with a space chainsaw or whatever, I get to say ‘I told you so.’ Hey, I’ll be dead, I’ll have to take my little victories where I can find them. Okay. Okay. So, I’m back in the main corridor, with all the debris all over the place, and I’m just trying to be careful so I don’t-”

“Lance?! Lance, are you alright?” Keith jumped out of his chair. Wishing there was something, anything, he could do.

“Sorry. I tripped over something and went down hard. And, uh, despite everything you may have read… in space, you can definitely hear _yourself_ scream. And it’s a little embarrassing. But the good news is, the thing I tripped over? It’s another little generator! It’s a different model than the one I’ve got back at the Atlas, powering the pod - a little smaller, a little lighter - but in essence, I’ve just doubled my power supply! So I’m calling this excursion into the nightmare ship a success, and I’m also calling it finished. Time for me and my generator to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Keith’s laptop dinged, and he leaned down to see what Pidge had responded.

_no clue. cant find any articles on the internet, but ill do some digging. initial response? looks like the disappearance was covered up in the same way as the disappearance of the kerberos_  

“How many ships have gone missing in this solar system?” Keith growled.

“Ah. God.” Lance’s voice crackled. “I would kiss this soil if I didn’t think that Earth would get jealous. I don’t know what that was. Maybe… maybe it was nothing. Just my mind playing tricks. It would sure suck if I survived a spaceship crash only to suffer a heart attack jumping from shadows, huh? I’m gonna sit here for a minute and try to catch my breath, okay? And maybe while I breathe, you can fill me in on why you immediately wanted to know if the crashed ship was the Kerberos?”

Keith sighed, pinching his nose. “That’s… fair. Um, I don’t know if you’ve… if you’ve wondered at all about how I was able to pick up your signal when no one else did. I mean, it shouldn’t be possible. I’m… I’m on Earth and you’re in Solar System NB-71. Anyways, the answer to that is an app that my friend made so that we could spy on the Garrison. And they don’t even know _what_ they did, but for some reason it seems like we’re picking up your signal and the Garrison isn’t. Or the Garrison is, and they’re ignoring it. We don’t know.”

“So let me get this straight,” Lance said slowly. “Your friend… created an app… that would let them spy on the _Galaxy Garrison_? Dude, who _is_ this friend? That’s _insane_.”

“Um, actually you know them. Pidge Gunderson. They said you were lab partners freshman year.”

“Um,” Lance hummed thoughtfully. “Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell. My lab partner freshman year was Katie Holt.”

Oh. Of course.

“Oh, right. Yeah. Same person. Pidge… um, Katie, got thrown out of the Garrison after they got caught trying to find information on the Kerberos crash. So they created a new identity and re-enrolled in classes.”

“Because Katie’s dad and brother we’re on the Kerberos mission,” Lance mused. “Yeah. I remember. And Katie was always a genius so that checks out. And, uh, what about you?”

“Shiro, my, uh, my brother was the pilot.”

Lance cursed. “Oh, _fuck_ , man. I didn’t even know that Shiro _had_ a brother.”

“Well, technically, he’s my foster brother. But, really, he’s just…”

“Your brother,” Lance finished. “Right. I get it.”

“So, anyways, that’s why both of us are here. At the Garrison. Because neither of us believed all the stories about the crash, and we knew the Garrison was hiding something, and we were trying to figure out what. And then the Atlas went dark and Pidge made this app and all of a sudden I could _hear_ you. And if you survived the Atlas crash… then maybe there’s a chance that Shiro and the Holts survived, too. I mean, I know it’s a long shot, but… you crashed down in the same system.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Lance said, and Keith couldn’t seem him, but it sounded like Lance was dangerously close to crying. “I mean, I don’t understand how anyone could have believed that a ship crashed due to ‘pilot error’ when the pilot was Takashi Shirogane, but would the Garrison really have put another ship in danger by sending it through the same system where the Kerberos went dark? Would they have put a _student_ in danger?”

_Yes_ , Keith thought silently.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Lance repeated. Then, as if the realization was just dawning in him, “Wait. You’re at the Garrison?”

“Yeah, I’m in my dorm right now.”

Lance let out a wet laugh. “Man, I would do _anything_ to see my shitty room in the Garrison dorms right now. But that means you can get help, right? Like you can tell people that I’m here?”

Keith hesitated. “If the Garrison covered up the disappearance of the Kerberos, what if they’re trying to cover up the disappearance of the Atlas too? What if I put you in more danger?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lance hissed. “So the chance of a rescue mission from the Garrison and NASA is… unlikely. Great. Just great.”

“I could go to the public,” Keith offered, “but if the Garrison and NASA don’t back me… they’ll probably just do what they did to Pidge and kick me out. And then I’m no use to anyone.”

“So I guess that means I’m going to have to find some other way off this rock. Which brings us back to where we started. The peak. It still looks like I’ve got a long hike north. From here, I can see a couple more craters in my direct path - smaller ones, though, nothing like the one I navigated earlier. This probably wouldn’t be the worst time to pause for a little food and drink to refuel before I start off again. Shoulder hurts pretty bad. Man, I’m kind of a mess, aren’t I? Don’t answer that. I’ve got this little generator with me. The question is, do I lug it all the way to the peak? Or do I leave it here and pick it up on the return trip? Check out that optimism that’s inherent in the idea I’m ever gonna make it back to the Atlas. Go, Lance.” Sarcasm and false cheer seemed to fight for dominance in Lance’s voice.

“You should take the generator with you. You might need it, like you needed the other one to power Captain Allura’s stasis pod,” Keith said, he knew the generator couldn’t be light, but the idea of leaving it alone at the wreck, leaving Lance without a power source…

“Fair enough. I mean, it will slow me down a little. But it might be worth it in the long run. Like you said, there’s a chance I could need it for something when I get to the peak. Or, and I’m trying not to think too much about this, there’s a chance that if I left it here with the caravel… I might make it back here, only to find the generator missing. In that case, I’d suddenly have _much_ bigger worries. I guess there’s not really much point in just thinking about it. I’m burning daylight, and I don’t really know how much I’ve already burned. It’s gonna be a long march, so if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna switch off my communicator and just concentrate on hiking for a bit.”

“Sure thing, Lance,” Keith said, even though he knew the line was already dead.

Keith reached over, fiddling with his laptop until the screen came to life. He tapped the button to open a Skype call to Pidge. If he knew his friend at all, they would still be awake.

Sure enough, after just a few seconds of the annoying theme song, a dorm room so black Keith could only make out the vague silhouette of Pidge’s figure filled the screen.

“I had to tell Lance that I didn’t think I could go to the Garrison for help,” Keith mourned, dropping his head into his hands. “Pidge, I was his _one hope_. I mean, it’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk to me while he’s hiking right now. _I_ wouldn’t want to talk to me either. I was his one shot of getting off that rock, and I can’t even do that right. How am I supposed to keep him alive if there’s no one to come _get_ him?”

“Keith, you need to calm down. If you start panicking, then Lance will start panicking, and neither of you will be of any use to anyone. You said that there was another crashed ship… could there be more of them? If Lance can get enough parts together, he might not need someone to rescue him. He could get off the moon, himself.”

Keith hesitated. “Even if he _could_ get a ship in working condition… I doubt there would be enough fuel or supplies for the entire flight back to Earth. I… I don’t know, Pidge.”

“At least it’s a plan. It’s got to be better than whatever Lance is doing right now. Speaking of… what is Lance doing right now?”

Keith shrugged. “He’s still trying to hike towards that peak. I think it’s further away than he thought it would be. I mean, I guess it didn’t help that he found that crashed ship. But I thought it was important that he stop and look for supp-”

“Something strange to report,” Lance’s voice crackled through the phone speakers, making Pidge sit up straighter on the other side of the computer screen. “I’ve been keeping close tabs on it, because I didn’t want to say anything until I was absolutely sure. My IEVA suit’s compass is one hundred percent useless. I got to the rim of a small crater, a little ways back, and elected just to walk around its perimeter. But the compass didn’t alter itself in concert with my orientation. It just spun at random, or not at all. It had nothing to do with which way I was facing. In fact, I’m not sure it’s been working properly ever since I was back at the caravel wreckage. I wasn’t really watching it closely back then, but looking back, I’m more and more certain of it.”

Pidge leaned forward again, so close that their face was almost pressing against their webcam. “Something’s messing with the polarity of your compass. Maybe even the same thing that what brought the ship down in the first place?”  

“Well that’s comforting,” Lance replied automatically. “Wait. Katie?”

“The one and only,” Pidge nodded. “How are you holding up, Lance?”

“Oh, you know, just stuck on a hopefully abandoned moon with nothing but mice food and three painkillers to keep me company,” Lance replied dryly. “So, you know, I’ve been better.”

“So if your compass isn’t working… how close are you to the peak?” Pidge asked.

“You’re gonna think I sound crazy,” Lance warned, “and, hell, maybe by this point I am. But I honestly don’t think the peak has gotten any closer since the last time I checked in. I’ve been marching relentlessly in that direction - you know, nose to the grindstone, full steam ahead, other similar expressions - but just eyeballing it? I haven’t gained any ground at all. I mean, I’m sure it’s just an optical illusion. I’m tired as hell, but I’m just gonna keep at it. Unless you two have a better idea?”

Keith glanced over at Pidge’s face in his laptop screen. They looked just as concerned as he felt. If Lance was so tired that his eyes were playing tricks on him…

“I think you have to keep going for the peak,” Keith said slowly, watching as Pidge nodded in agreement.

“If it’s just an optical illusion, you should actually be a lot closer than you think you are,” Pidge added.

“Right,” Lance said. “Of course. No stopping now. There is, however, pausing now, because I’m so thirsty I can barely think straight. I’m gonna hydrate and then get back to hiking. I’ll check in after a while, when I’m closer to the peak. Which I _obviously_ will be. Because you can’t keep moving towards something and never reach it. _Obviously_. Obviously?”

The communication line clicked off.

“What do we do?” Keith asked, throwing his hands up into the air. “Pidge?”   


“Hold on,” Pidge said. “I’m on my way over.”

“It’s after curfew,” Keith pointed out. “Fuck, it’s almost _morning_.”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “I’m on my way over.”

< < < > > >

Keith had never been so grateful to hear tapping against the pane of his window. He leaned over, propping the window open just wide enough for Pidge to scramble into his room.

“Has Lance answered back yet?” They asked.

Keith shook his head. “No. I think he’s still hiking.”

Pidge frowned. “You know, the closer he gets, the worse I feel about this peak. I mean… a crashed spaceship, something distorting the polarity… it doesn’t feel right. Something’s not adding up.”  


“I know what you mean,” Keith growled. “Something has to be bringing all these ships down. It can’t be a coincidence that they’re all crashing onto the same planet in a virtually unexplored solar system.”

“I agree,” Pidge said. “And I think it has something to do with the-”

“Still…” Lance’s voice broke through the darkness, accompanied by the sound of his panting breath, “don’t think I’m any closer to the peak. Tau Ceti is on its way down. And the peak looks - I know how weird this is going to sound - but it looks sort of… shimmery. Shimmery and green. Like it’s putting out a real, low-level glow. Kind of. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get any closer to the stupid peak to figure out what’s making that stupid glow. I think… I think I have to turn back. I don’t feel like I can get there before it starts to turn dark. Hell, I don’t know if I can get back to the Atlas before it turns dark. I might be lucky to make it back to the caravel wreck. And that’s about the most tenuous definition of ‘lucky’ I can imagine.”

Keith glanced over towards Pidge, who nodded. “You’re right, Lance. You need to turn back. You need to find someplace safe to set up camp again before it gets dark. If the winds are as strong as they seem to be…”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “Maybe this is the best plan. I mean, given Tau Ceti’s position in the sky, I’ve got less day ahead of me than behind. As long as I can see my boot prints in the sand, I’ll have no problem. If and when those disappear, I’ll have to navigate by landmarks like the caravel site and, past that, the enormous crater. If my luck holds, I’ll make it back to the Atlas before sunset. Maybe once I’m there, I can build a compass out of spare parts. I think I still remember how to do that. Anyways, enough talkin’. No time for chattin’. Not even enough time for puttin’ the ‘g’ at the end of words. That’s how you know I’m really runnin’ short on time. All right. Back to hikin’.”

The transmission clicked off again, filling the dorm room with the buzz of static.

“I hate it when he does that,” Keith growled.

Pidge ignored him, typing away furiously on their laptop. “If there’s something messing with the polarity of the moon… and that’s somehow tied into what makes the ships crash… but that doesn’t make any sense,” Pidge muttered. “Why would someone purposely try to draw ships in so that they would crash? Or is it just a natural, unexplained phenomenon that occurs because of the makeup of the moon? And if that’s true, why doesn’t NASA just keep their ships out of the solar system?”   


“Um, Pidge, you okay over there?” Keith asked.

Pidge whipped their head up, their brown hair pouncing. “I think I need to go down to the lab. I’m going to see if I can find any explanation for what’s disturbing the polarity of the moon.”  


“You’re going to go down to the lab?” Keith echoed incredulously. “It’s six in the morning.”

Pidge shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Someone needs to figure out what’s going on. If I can figure out what’s disrupting the polarity… maybe I can figure out how to stop it. I don’t know. But I have to try.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Keith said. “Message me if you figure anything out.”  


Pidge jumped up, tucking their laptop under their arm. “And you message _me_ if there’s any other developments.”

And then they were climbing back through the window.

Keith slumped down into his desk chair.

Alone again.

< < < > > >

The sun had fully risen outside Keith’s window by the time Lance started speaking again.

It had to be close to seven in the morning, and he hadn’t managed to sleep at _all_. The doubleshot of espresso had worn off hours ago, leaving Keith feeling exhausted. But he couldn’t fall asleep, not now. Not when Lance needed him.

“I’m back in sight of the caravel wreckage,” Lance said. “I never thought I’d be grateful to see this haunted house of a starship again. I’m feeling weak as anything. The rations from the Atlas will keep body and soul together nominally… but I don’t think they were designed for the active, outdoor lifestyle I’ve been living ever since I got marooned. From here, if memory serves, it’s around a four hour walk back to the Atlas. At least, I think that’s how long it took me to get here earlier. And that was _with_ a working compass. My suit’s headlamp is totally dead at this point. Once Tau Ceti sets, I’ll be completely blind. I guess my options are to forge ahead towards the Atlas, and pray I get there before I run out of light, or else make camp here, despite how scary that sounds, and get busy figuring out how to stay warm for the night.”

Keith bit his lip. “I think you need to make camp. I don’t like the idea of you wandering around that moon in the dark.”  
  
“Yeah,” Lance agreed, “I’m not too crazy about that idea, either. Okay. So, there’s no way I can sleep out under the stars - as romantic as it sounds, the temperature drop is just going to be too severe. Just like back at the Atlas, there’s clearly no power on the caravel to help me get the doors shut, but _unlike_ at the Atlas, I think I have a solution to that. The only opening to the outside is the door on the airlock, which is just barely big enough for me to shimmy through. And once I’m in, there’s all sorts of junk littering the corridor. Junk I can use to seal that opening in the door. A few layers of Mylar blankets, maybe some bedding if I can turn any up from the cabins, and I ought to be able to insulate myself decently. I’ve got ten glow rods left, so I’m gonna go ahead and crack one to hunt through the rubbish in here. Last time, I went down the east hall, so I can either go check out the west hall or the flight deck. But like I said, the control panels are smashed to bits.”

“Check out the flight deck, just to be sure there’s nothing useful,” Keith said.

“Good grief. There’s enough junk thrown around in here that I could probably build myself a jaunty robot companion out of spare parts. If I knew much about building robots. Or programming them to be ‘jaunty.’ Okay. Here I am. Like I thought, the instrument panels are trashed. Not that this caravel was ever in danger of taking off again, what with the whole ‘missing its engine’ problem… bt it looks like it’s all wrecked: guidance, communications, waldo controls. The whole nine yards. Or, the whole eight meters and change. Wait. Hold on. It looks like maybe I spoke too soon. There’s a… well, it looks like a proximity alarm. Panel appears to be intact. God knows whether the rest of the hardware is functional. I don’t think I really need an alarm system. Not like this ship is parked in a high-crime neighborhood. Plus, that means figuring out how to hook up the system to the generator. And that’s _if_ the thing still even works. Which is a pretty big ‘if.’ What do you think?”

“I think you should try to hook up the alarm,” Keith replied, Pidge’s words of ‘natural phenomena’ and ‘someone purposefully drawing ships in’ running through his mind. “It’s better to be careful, right? And you _did_ hear something earlier.”

“Ugh. Thanks for that cheerful reminder. I’m going to have to sleep here, you know? I mean, this is probably just a waste of time, effort, and light. All of which are in short supply around here. All right. Another glow rod cracked. Fortunately, maybe, the wires to this thing are mostly exposed, so maybe it won’t be that hard to get it patched to the generator. Let’s see… if I… hold on… maybe I need to...   _woah_! In what I’m calling nothing short of a miracle, I’ve got the alarm hooked up, and the monitor powered. Whatever detection grid this thing projects, it actually appears to be projecting most of it. The section that covers the rear of the ship says ‘No Readings,’ but that’s probably because there _is_ no rear of the ship anymore. All right, then, I guess no one's gonna steal my hubcaps while I catch some ZZZs. The ship really must’ve been designed for a small crew. Only a single mission specialist seat up here. Which seems to be my most comfortable option as far as sleeping arrangements go around here. I figure it’s time to call it a night. I’ve only got two glow rods left; no sense in cracking another one now. I sealed over the airlock door, and I’ve got enough blankets to swaddle myself and hopefully beat the cold. Night, Keith.”

The communication line clicked shut.

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith replied softly.

Well, if Lance was going to get some sleep, there was no reason he couldn’t do the same, Keith thought, as he rose and tossed himself onto his bed. He was still wearing his jeans and tennis shoes from… two days ago? But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

All this worrying about someone else was exhausting.

His head had barely hit the pillow before he was falling asleep.

< < < > > >

“Huh? Whuzzat noise? You say something?”

The static that had settled into something resembling a comfortable white noise was broken by a familiar voice, just loud enough to draw Keith from the depths of sleep.

He blinked down at his phone from where it was laying on the edge of his bed, the long charger connecting it to the wall. Had someone been saying something?

“ _What the hell was that?!_ ”

Keith bolted upright. Okay, yes. That was definitely Lance.

“Lance?” He asked reaching over and scooping up his phone. According to his clock, it had only been a few hours. There was no reason that Lance should be awake, and yet…

“Oh, god. Okay. Oh, god. I’m awake. I’m awake,” Lance muttered. “Uh, there was this… I don’t know, this, like scuttling type of noise. Coming from behind me, out in the corridor. And I turned around. And, and… I saw something. Something moving. Something _glowing_. Glowing green. Lots of little somethings, actually. Like what I saw earlier, I think. Close to the ground. That’s just… I mean, I didn’t _actually_ hear anything. Or see anything. Right? It’s just my exhausted, terrified mind playing tricks on me. ‘Space Madness,’ like in that old Ren & Stimpy cartoon. Remember that? I should just… go back to sleep, yeah?”

“No, no, no,” Keith insisted, wiping sleep from his eyes. “Lance, if you heard something, you need to go check it out.”

“Wow. That is the _last_ thing I want to do. Go traipsing around in the cold and the dark, looking for something that isn’t here to begin with? It’s not like glow rods grow on trees. And even if they did, it’s not like there are any trees on this moon. Seriously, I feel like it’s a better plan if I just go back to sleep. Don’t _you_ prefer sleep to snipe hunting?”

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith warned. “Just double check. For me, please. I need to know you’re safe.”

Lance sighed. “One more glow rod cracked, which means I now have exactly one remaining. So I hope this is worth it. How do you know that this scuttling monster’s whole modus operandi isn’t to wait until its prey is ridiculously sleepy… and then lure it into a corridor so littered with trash that the bleary-eyed prey slips and breaks its own neck? Because I am about ninety-nine percent sure that’s what’s going to happen to me sometime in the next few minutes. All right. I’m gonna walk the halls. I’ll scream like I’m the singer for a Van Halen cover band if anything jumps out at me.”

Keith dug his fingers into his knee, waiting for Lance to respond. He was probably right. It was probably nothing. After all, what could it _possibly_ be? But Lance had heard something in the abandoned ship earlier, too.

What if there really was something in there with him?

“Okay. I’ve been everywhere I can get to inside this ship, and I didn’t find a thing. No noises, no movement, no glowing green anything. I must’ve just dreamt the whole thing. And that’s what I intend to do now. Get back to sleeping and dreaming. And probably scaring myself silly yet again. But next time I’ll know better than to go looking for monsters under the bed. Let’s pretend this chair is comfortable, it isn’t, and that I’m about to go right back to sleep, not likely, and that when I wake up in the morning there will be a rescue ship waiting with a whole breakfast buffet onboard. That seems probable, right? Goodnight, again.”

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith whispered, laying back down. He placed his phone onto the pillow next to him, imagining that he could hear Lance’s breathing, rather than just static.

< < < > > >

“Crap! The alarm is going off!” Lance’s voice, when it crackles through the speakers just an hour later, is loud enough to give Keith a heart attack. “ _So_ this is what it feels like to go into cardiac arrest in deep space!”

Yeah, Keith could kind of relate to that feeling. Except for the deep space part.

“There’s… there’s nothing on the monitor screen. I mean, obviously there’s nothing on the screen. What would be there? I’m the only living thing for who knows how many light years. Screw this. I’m unplugging this stupid device. I’m regretting ever hooking it up in the first place. I’m gonna go ahead and say it. Tonight is not angling for a shot in my ‘best sleep ever’ Hall of Fame. Back to bed. Such as it is.”

Keith fumbled for his phone, “Wait. Lance, don’t unplug the-”

But the only sound that greeted him was static.

Keith let out a groan, flopping backwards onto his bed.

Like he would be able to sleep _now_.  


	3. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “‘Looks like’ what?” Keith felt a cold, icy pit settle in the middle of his stomach. He pushed open the doors to the Student Union, the chatter and voices inside feeling decisively too cheery for whatever Lance was about to say.
> 
> “Okay,” Lance said slowly, like he was trying to calm himself down. “Keep in mind that I know how crazy this sounds. Keep in mind that I don’t even believe it, myself. But it looks almost like…” Lance trailed off, taking a deep, rattling breath. “Like a person. I mean, it’s all shadows. It’s impossible to make out anything on this monitor screen, at this distance. And the human mind has a tendency to spot human-like shapes in random things. I just learned the word for it recently: ‘pareidolia.’ Like when people see the Virgin Mary in water stains, or smiley faces in car headlights. I’m probably more prone to it than anyone right now, being all alone out here, desperately seeking the familiar. So even though this looks like a person every single time I rewind it, I know that, of course, it isn’t a person. Deep breaths. No freaking out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been reading/commenting/livetweeting! I know I just posted the second chapter, but I couldn't resist posting the third chapter! The epilogue should be up tomorrow. I hope you enjoy ;)

**DAY THREE**

 

“Morning, which means it’s time to rise and shine. So I’m rising. And I’m definitely shining. By which I mean, I’m feeling like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining. Intensely cold and more than a little crazy. And - again, not trying to be gross here - I’ve got the absolute _worst_ taste in my mouth, and my saliva is green. Last night, I slept indoors rather than out, and nowhere near a radiation source… this has _got_ to be something atmospheric, a by-product of whatever I’m exhaling. I wish I knew what. So first thing’s first. Breakfast. I’m going to see if I can get into the caravel’s galley today. There has to be something more appetizing than mouse food in there.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, his voice hoarse from sleep. “There has to be.”

“Woah, dude, you sound rough. Sorry for waking you up last night. I think I was a little paranoid. Alright, back through the main hall, and then down one of the side corridors… and, hey, Good News/Bad News time. There _is_ a galley on this ship! And it’s door is ajar! But it’s… hnnnnnn… it’s not open… wide enough… for me to get through. It’s a lot smaller than the galley on the Atlas. And it looks like the inside of a galley-themed snowglobe after someone shook it violently. Everything is just everywhere, strewn all over the place. MREs just waiting to disappoint someone’s palate. The door seriously will not budge. But, hey, all hope is not lost. I think I have an idea. If I can find enough spare parts among the junk in this ship, I should be able to fashion some sort of reaching pole. And it won’t be too difficult to make a simple grabbing claw that I can trigger from my end. Give me a few minutes to root around in here, and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

Keith blinked at his clock. Almost three in the afternoon. God, his sleep schedule was _fucked_. But at least the Student Union would be open. He was _starving_. When was the last time he had eaten something other than poptarts? He couldn’t even remember.

Keith climbed out of bed, pulling on a clean pair of jeans and a mostly clear t-shirt, before scooping up his phone and plugging in a pair of earbuds. He _definitely_ didn’t need any of his fellow students to hear Lance’s rambling, but if he didn’t get some real food, he wasn’t gonna be much help to anyone.

“Okay!” Lance enthused, just as Keith was locking his the door to his room, “My Reachin’ Stick is done. That’s with capital letters because this is obviously a million-dollar idea. It’s amazing how many million-dollar ideas you come up with when you’re stranded in space, where a million dollars is useless. I’ve already banged up my shoulder, so why not strain it to the breaking point by shoving it as far through the door as it’ll go? All right, Reachin’ Stick… let’s start reachin’! Steady… steady… _crap_! I wasn’t steady enough. Okay, slowly but surely… I’ve got the claw on either side of something shiny and silver and presumably edible… here is comes… don’t drop it… _do not drop it you clumsy dropper you_ … ha! Yes! Oh my goodness, I did it! I went fishing and caught myself a chicken pesto pasta! Part of me wants to tear into this right now… but maybe I should keep grabbing meal packs until I have a sizable stash.”

“Keep fishing,” Keith agreed, pushing open the dorm building’s front door. It was warm enough outside that he didn’t need a jacket, which was a welcome relief since he had forgot to bring one.

“Good point. With a Reachin’ Stick this nice, it’d be a shame not to keep on reachin’. That’ll probably be the official motto of Reachin’ Stick. You are witnessing history being made, my friend. Carefully… annnnnd… just nailed a teriyaki beef! And just beyond that is… ratatouille? I have to admit, I have no idea what ratatouille is, outside of the Pixar movie. Could this be a freeze-dried, CGI-animated rat?”

“Yes,” Keith said dryly. “That’s exactly what it is.”

“Huh. Well, it tastes like stewed vegetables. They really managed to mask the computer-animated rodent flavour well. Good job, MRE engineers!”

Keith snorted. It wasn’t much further to the Student Union, where he could get some food of his own, although, hopefully something a little more appetizing than freeze-dried MRE packages. And maybe a coffee.

“Okay!” Lance declared. “Finished with breakfast, such as it was - beggers can’t be choosers, and all that. The way I see it, today is all about reaching that peak. I have to hope that my inability to get to it yesterday was just a combination of exhaustion and optical illusion. With food in my belly and the full day ahead of me, I’m liking my odds a lot better today. I also like knowing that this caravel - and the little generator I hooked up - are waiting for me on my return trip to the Atlas. That’ll allow me to fire up the distress beacon, so maybe I can actually get out of here. Or else, I could fire up the gun turret, on the slim chance there really _is_ something else here besides me. So, what do you think? Figure I can make it to the peak today?”

“I think you should check the proximity alarm first,” Keith said slowly. “Just to see what might have set it off last night.”  

“That’s… a good point. Okay, let me see… the generator is plugged in and running the alarm system. Now I can scan through its memory and try to figure out what broke the grid and set this thing off last night. Best guess? Strong winds whipped up a dust cloud, or even some small rocks. I mean, the wind gusted strong enough to roll my escape pod like ten feet, night before last. I’ll bet you anything that’s all that happened here. I mean it w-”

“ _Lance_?!” Keith hissed, as Lance’s voice cut off. He could feel a few of the students looking at him curiously, so he ducked his head down, bringing his lips closer to the microphone of his headphones. “Are you still there?”

“This is so weird. I’ve rewatched it a couple of times now, I keep rewinding and playing it over and over. If you’re watching really, _really_ carefully in Quadrant Two, of the three that are functional, at the very outskirts of the grid there’s… something that looks like… nope. Nevermind. It can’t be. I’m just going loopy, being alone out here.”

“‘Looks like’ what?” Keith felt a cold, icy pit settle in the middle of his stomach. He pushed open the doors to the Student Union, the chatter and voices inside feeling decisively too cheery for whatever Lance was about to say.

“Okay,” Lance said slowly, like he was trying to calm himself down. “Keep in mind that I know how crazy this sounds. Keep in mind that I don’t even believe it, myself. But it looks almost like…” Lance trailed off, taking a deep, rattling breath. “Like a person. I mean, it’s all shadows. It’s impossible to make out anything on this monitor screen, at this distance. And the human mind has a tendency to spot human-like shapes in random things. I just learned the word for it recently: ‘pareidolia.’ Like when people see the Virgin Mary in water stains, or smiley faces in car headlights. I’m probably more prone to it than anyone right now, being all alone out here, desperately seeking the familiar. So even though this looks like a person _every single time I rewind it_ , I know that, of course, it _isn’t_ a person. Deep breaths. No freaking out.”

Keith felt his heart stop beating in his chest. A person. Was there any chance it could be…

Keith stopped walking, causing the person who had entered the Union behind him to slam into his back. “Lance. You survived the crash of the Atlas. Is it… is it possible that there could be other survivors from the crash? Or survivors from another crash?” He asked, trying to keep his voice as quiet as he possibly could.

“Like the Kerberos, you mean,” Lance guessed. “I don’t know. Someone else from the Atlas… maybe. But most of the crew was accounted for when I found the bodies. And if there really is someone else, wouldn’t I have seen them by now?”

He had a point. If there were other survivors, Lance probably _would_ have seen them by now. Keith nodded, then paused, realizing Lance wasn’t actually around to see him. “You’re right. So I guess there’s nothing else for you to do besides checking out the peak.”

“I’ve trekked too far into this mystery not to find out its answer,” Lance agreed. “I’m just gonna pack up a few munchies, and stow the generator someplace safe. Then I’ll get on my way. I’ll message you when I’m heading out.”

“Okay,” Keith agreed, moving out of way of the other students. While Lance packed up his stuff, he could grab something to eat.

The Student Union had a bistro that served coffee and teas and sandwiches, which seemed like a better option than making another trip over to the dining hall, so Keith followed the sea of post-class students over to the bistro, grabbing one of the prepackaged sandwiches from the cooled display case. Turkey Pesto. Fine.

He had to wait a few minutes to make his way to the front of the line, before placing his order for a large cold-brew coffee.

Lance started speaking again while he was waiting for his coffee to be handed to him.

“Stuck my head out of the caravel and caught what was, honestly, one of the most impressive sunrises I’ve ever witnessed. That sun being Tau Ceti and not good ol’ Sol, but still, I’m gonna go ahead and count it. So, first of all, let’s just be impressed that I was up and at ‘em before first light. That hasn’t happened in… ever? And second, I should mention that I could see that weird green corona around the peak again, that sort of soft glow. The light, like the shape of the peak itself, is just a few degrees away from natural-looking. It weirds me out. And, yes. ‘Weirds me out’ is the technical, scientific term for it. Look it up. From the Latin for ‘icky yucky squicky.’”

Keith snorted.

“Oh, and last but not least, my IEVA suit’s compass is still acting all icky yucky squicky. I guess I don’t _really_ need it for hiking to the peak; so long as I’ve got line of sight, it shouldn’t be a problem to get there. But I bet I could spend a few minutes and cobble one together from spare parts before I take off.”

“If you can figure out how to, I say do it. You might not need it for the hike there, but what about the way back? You’ll want to be able to find the caravel again,” Keith whispered, accepting his drink from the barista.

“Hey, all right. This should almost be fun! Maybe I should put ‘fun’ in air quotes. It’s a pretty nerdy version of ‘fun,’ if we’re being honest. Okay. The medkit has a couple of needles in it, so that’s easy enough. I’ve done this before with a bowl of water, but it’s not like I’m going to balance one of those while I’m hiking all day… but really, the important thing is just that the compass face is able to float, frictionless, while it spins. So instead I’m gonna do a variation, where the compass face is balanced on, like, a pushpin or a brad. Something like that. Of course, the most important part of making any compass is finding a magnet. Preferably, a rare earth magnet. But fortunately, up in the flight deck there’s a whole bank of computers that aren’t using their hard drives right now! A little bit of gentle disassembly - by which I mean, I’m gonna smash the crap out of them with whatever’s handy - and I’ll have the magnets out of those drives and rubbed on these needles in no time!”  

Keith restrained a chuckle at the sound of Lance’s voice. It was almost like the other boy was _genuinely_ excited about trying to create a compass from nothing but junk. Sounded like the type of hobby that Pidge would enjoy, Keith thought dryly.

Pidge!

Keith should probably check in on them at the lab and see if they had figured anything out about the weird polarization issues that seemed to be occurring on Lance’s moon.

Keith took a sip of his coffee, as he made his way out of the Student Union and down in the direction of the labs. With any luck, Pidge would have some good news he could tell Lance.

“And voila!” Lance declared, as Keith was about halfway down to the labs. “I magnetized the needles, attached them to a featherweight disc of plastic MRE wrapper, mounted it all on a bent paper clip, and couched the whole assembly in a piece of PVC tubing. It may not be pretty, but it seems to actually work. By which I mean, it points towards the peak and tells me that’s north. Which is better than my suit compass can do. Score one for the indoor kid! All right, my compass and I are heading north. Weird-ass peak or bust. I’ll message you after a while.”

Keith picked his way down the large hill that led to the Garrison’s science labs. He would have hated being a science student, like Pidge, who would have to make the hike on a daily basis. His flight simulators suddenly didn’t seem all that bad.

The labs loomed before him, multistory buildings of metal and glass that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Most classes would be over by this time, a fact that Keith was infinitely grateful for as he pushed open the glass door to the lobby. The floors of the lab building were gleaming tiles, and the fluorescent lights above were flickering. There were stairs near the entrance that would lead up to the second and third floors, where a bulk of the classrooms were, but Keith ignored them in favor of the stairs that led down to the basement.

If Pidge were still here, they would be as far away from sunlight as they could manage.

Keith’s footsteps echoed ominously through the space, and he winced at the idea of Professor Iverson catching him lurking around the labs after he had skipped class for two days in a row.

But the basement of the labs was blissfully empty, save for the thin beam of light emerging from the closed door of the smaller lab, the one across from the computer lab.

Keith eased the door open, poking his head inside. “Pidge?” He called softly.

A bundle of brown hair picked itself off one of the lab tables. “Hm? M’awake, I promise,” Pidge said, jumping to their feet.

Keith held up his hands in surrender, which probably looked ridiculous since he was still holding his coffee and his sandwich. “Relax, Pidge, it’s just me.”

Pidge visibly deflated. “I thought you were Professor Montgomery.”

“Nope,” Keith said, moving further into the room to join Pidge at the lab table. “Just me. Try not to sound so disappointed.”

Pidge rolled their eyes, then “Is that coffee?”

Keith sighed, surrendering the cup. “It’s coldbrew,” he warned.

“I’m so tired, I don’t even care. I won’t even make fun of you for your pretentious hipster coffee order,” Pidge said, making grabby hands at the cup, and gratefully lifting it to their lips when Keith surrendered it. “Ugh. This is disgusting. How do you drink this?”

Keith just shrugged, unwrapping his sandwich and sliding half over to Pidge. “So did you find anything? With your research?”

“Not much, it’s hard when I don’t have any definitive samples or numbers to go off of,” Pidge sighed. “If I were actually _on_ the moon with Lance… maybe. But the best I can do is offer an educated guess. If I were to put money on it, I would hazard a guess that there’s some kind of element found within that peak that affects polarity? But that’s just a guess.”

“Thanks for trying, Pidge,” Keith said, reaching over and ruffling their hair.

Pidge swatted his hand away.

Keith pulled apart his sandwich, tossing a piece of it into his mouth. “So we’re pretty much back to where we started?”

Pidge shrugged. “Pretty much.”

Keith sighed, dropping his head down to the table. “Here,” he pulled out his phone and slid it over to Pidge. “Wake me up if Lance messages.”

“Sure,” Pidge said around a mouthful of sandwich, like the little gremlin they were.

< < < > > >

“Hey,” Pidge whispered, shaking Keith’s shoulder.

He blinked his eyes open.

Lance’s voice was spilling into the room around them. “-ched this point yesterday, having detoured around the rim of a little crater. This was where I was when I realized that my IEVA suit’s compass was all screwy, even though I was probably five miles from the wreck. That’s… like… eight kilometers? I’m trying. I really am. And that’s still the case today. The suit compass is nuttier than two squirrels in a winter food hoarding competition. My homemade compass, on the other hand, seems to be working perfectly. Maybe they should have had me scratch-built the Atlas, too. It might’ve stayed in one piece that way. Ugh. That joke went a little dark right in the middle of me telling it. Sorry about that. Once again, I don’t feel like I’m any closer to the peak. Once again, I’m questioning whether to keep going.”

Keith glanced over at Pidge, who was ignoring him in favor of scribbling frantically into a notebook. Okay. No help from that corner, then.

“I think you have to keep going,” Keith said.

“Yeah, all right,” Lance agreed. “Plenty of daylight ahead of me. Finite amount of moon. If I keep putting one foot in front of the other enough times, I’m bound to get someplace. Or die trying.”

“Please don’t,” Keith said softly, to the fuzz of static.

Curse Lance and his tendency to turn off his communicator right after really cryptic sentences.

“Well that’s not annoying,” Pidge said, as if in agreement with Keith’s thoughts. “Does he _ever_ let you get the last word?”

“No,” Keith replied, grinding his teeth.

Pidge nodded. “Sounds like Lance.”

Right. They knew each other.

It was still a weird realization.

“What’s Lance like?” Keith asked, unable to stop himself. “In real life? I mean, not that this isn’t real life, it’s just that he’s clearly under a lot of stress and-”

“Keith, relax,” Pidge cut him off. “I know what you mean. He’s… loud. Brash. And kind of annoying sometimes. A lot to take in all at once. But he’s also incredibly kind and caring. He can be funny, when he isn’t trying to hard to impress someone. But he’s usually trying to impress someone. He spent most of freshman year trying to flirt with Kinkade. Not that he ever got anywhere,” Pidge snorted at the memory.

“Kinkade?” Keith echoed, trying to place the name. “Wait. _Ryan_ Kinkade?”

Pidge nodded. “Yeah. That one. They bonded over their mutual desire to learn how to shoot a sniper rifle or something,” Pidge rolled their eyes.

“He wanted to be a pilot, right?” Keith asked.

Pidge nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I was kinda surprised that Lance went on the Atlas trip to begin with. He was never one for the traditional science classes. He never had the patience for them, never really applied himself. I mean, he got in to the Garrison, so he must be smart, but…” Pidge trailed off, shrugging. “He just never really seemed to _care_ about the science side of things.”

Keith tapped the desk. He could understand that.

He didn’t really care about the science side of things, either.

He always just wanted to _go_ , _go_ , _go_.

Shiro had always told him he was impulsive.

God, should he even be the one responsible for aiding Lance in his decision-making when Keith’s own decisions had always been so disastrous?

Getting into fights with James Griffon, stealing Shiro’s car, letting himself get kicked out of the Garrison after Shiro’s disappearance, begging to be let back into the classes a year later so he could secretly investigate Shiro’s disappearance.

He was the _last_ person anyone should take advice from.

“Well,” Lance’s voice interrupted the train of Keith’s thoughts. “The good news is, I haven’t died trying. The bad news is, I honestly can’t tell whether I’ve gotten any closer. It’s as if time and space and perspective have all taken a little vacation in the vicinity of this weird peak. One moment I’ll look up and think, ‘Heh, I’m almost there!’ And then I’ll blink, and it’ll seem like it’s ten miles away again. I’m thinking of taking a snack break before I get back to it.”

Keith glanced at his half eaten sandwich that he had fallen asleep rather than finish. “Sure,” he agreed. “I’m pretty sure that you’ve earned it.”

“All right!” Lance said, his voice dripping with false enthusiasm. “I’m just gonna go with the first MRE I grab out of my pack. And the winner is… chili with beans! In space, no one can hear you fart. Some would argue that chili with beans isn’t proper chili at all. Which side of this all-important debate do _you_ land on?”

Keith wrinkled his nose at the thought of eating freeze-dried chili. “Um. No beans?” He offered.

More like no chili. Ever.

“Having tried this MRE, I’m inclined to agree with you,” Lance said, and Keith could just imagine him wrinkling his nose. “They should’ve left out the beans. Hell, they probably should have left out the chili. Still. I’m glad we solved that riddle. If, god forbid, I die out here on this desert moon, please make sure they serve chili _without beans_ at my wake. I’m eating, then hiking’, pardner,” Lance said in an exaggerated accent. “Talk to you in a few.”

“Talk to you in a few,” Keith echoed.

“Oh, man,” Pidge said softly, studying Keith intently. “ _Keith_.”

“What?” Keith snapped, feeling himself blush under the weight of Pidge’s gaze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You know that there’s a very real chance that Lance won’t make it off that moon, right? You really shouldn’t be getting so… attached.”

“I’m not attached,” Keith protested automatically.

“Keith,” Pidge said again. “You should have seen your face when he was talking.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith said shortly, standing so hard the chair screeched across the floor. “I’m going back to my dorm.”

“Keith!” Pidge called after him, but he ignored them.

If he had anything to say about, he would get Lance off that stupid rock. Even if it meant he had to go to the Garrison.

Keith froze, halfway up the basement steps.

It was true, he realized. If Lance didn’t find anything at this peak that would help him get off the moon, Keith would go to the Garrison for help.

Even knowing that they had helped cover up the truth about the Kerberos.

They were still Lance’s best chance for survival. For rescue.

Because Lance deserved to be rescued. He deserved to get off that moon. He deserved to come back to the Garrison, to finish his schooling, to… to do whatever he wanted to do.

Keith could almost picture it. The smiling boy from the Facebook page, with his brown curls and bright eyes, laughing as he stepped off the rescue ship and back down to Earth. Dropping down to kiss the soil the way he had teased about doing. And… and Keith would be there, to see him, and Lance would look over at him and _know_ who he was, and he would…

What?

He would what?

Keith shook his head to clear it of the daydreams. Because that’s all they were. Daydreams.

Even if he went to the Garrison, there was no guarantee that a rescue ship would make it in time.  

Lance wouldn’t step off the ship and instantly recognize him. That was the dream of a child, the dream of the same part of himself that still wanted desperately to believe that Shiro was alive.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, Keith climbed up the rest of the stairs and set off in the direction of his dorm room.

He just needed to be alone.

< < < > > >

His dorm room was dark, the curtains pulled all the way down, his door locked. Keith curled up on his bed, pulling his laptop closer.

He had been scrolling down Lance’s Facebook page again. And when he had reached photographs so old Lance was little more than a child, he had tried to find the other boy on Instagram.

It had taken a little bit of digging, since Lance didn’t use his real name. Instead, his account was listed as ‘LoverboiLance’ which made Keith roll his eyes, but the page was filled with selfies, mostly just of himself, but sometimes with the large, darker-skinned boy from his Facebook page.

_How_ had he never seen Lance around the Garrison?

He clicked onto the next picture, studying the freckles that stood out against Lance’s skin. The background of this particular picture seemed to be a beach, and Lance just looked so _at home_ that it made Keith’s chest ache.

Why did he even care so much?

“Okay,” Lance’s voice crackled, interrupting the static. “I’ve finally been able to make some real, noticeable progress. I’m at the edge of another crater. A pretty enormous one, with massive walls to rappel down into it. But the base of the peak is at the center of the crater, right at the deepest point of its concavity. So as long as I can keep an eye on it, it can’t go anywhere. In theory, anyways. It’s a long way down into that crater, and I’ve got no climbing equipment. Obviously. Can I get down safely? Will I ever get back out? What do you say? Ready to find out?”

Keith took a deep breath. “Go for it, Lance.”

“I’ve scouted out the crater walls that are in scouting-out distance, and found a section with a decent amount of crags and footholds. I guess, in the absence of nylon ropes and carabiners, a few shallow divots in the rock is as good as it’s gonna get. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? I end up sawing off my arm with a blunt Swiss Army knife like the ‘127 Hours’ guy? Actually… yes. That _does_ sound like the worst that could happen. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Keith said, trying to pour as much honesty into his voice as possible.

“Thanks. Unfortunately, I think I’m actually gonna need it. This would… probably be easier if I wasn’t talking to you. No offense, I just really ought to concentrate. If you never hear from me again, it’s because I pulled a ‘127 Hours’ just like I was afraid of. Not sure what that translates to in metric terms. Hopefully it sounds more impressive. ‘49,087 Megaminutes’ or something. Okay. Down I go. Talk to you soon. I hope.”

The communicator clicked off, filling the room with static.

From Keith’s laptop screen, Lance’s smiling face seemed to mock him.

Keith slammed his laptop shut.

Lance would be fine. He would reach the bottom of the crater without falling and severely injuring himself. He would be fine.

Keith repeated the phrase to himself like a mantra until Lance’s voice broke through the static almost half an hour later.

“I made it! A couple of minor mishaps along the way, but who doesn’t love a good adrenaline rush from time to time? I’m gonna pop one of these painkillers, because I have a pain that would benefit from being killed. That puts me down to two pills, but I’m pretty sure the relief is gonna be worth it. Now I’ve got a long, slow slog ahead of me. I really can’t overstate how big a bowl this crater is. Especially now that I’m down inside of it. But the peak is in view. It’s not going anywhere. I’m going to get there if I just keep walking in that direction. My rattletrap compass still tells me I’m pointed north, so I guess I get my merit badge for that. I’ll check in with you when I’m closer to my goal. Until then…” Lance trailed off.

“Be careful,” Keith said, even though he knew Lance probably couldn’t hear him. God. What if this had been a mistake, sending Lance traipsing towards a weird, possibly glowing peak on a strange moon? Maybe he should have told Lance to just stay at the Atlas. Hell, at the caravel. And then he could have gone to Professor Iverson, or Professor Montgomery and explained everything.

Maybe a rescue ship could have been dispatched two days ago, and Lance could sleep soundly, knowing that rescue was already on its way. There were MRE supplies at the caravel wreck. Maybe he could make it that long.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

God, Keith felt _fucking_ helpless. When it came down to it, there was _nothing_ he could do to immediately help Lance. Was he being an idiot by waiting, holding off on the one thing he could actually do?

What would Shiro do?

Shiro would trust the Garrison. Probably.

And look where that had gotten him, Keith thought bitterly.

Dead, probably, in all likelihood. His ship crashed down onto the same moon that drew in the Atlas like a moth to a flame. Shiro was dead, leaving his mother, his brother, and his fiancé behind.

Wait.

God. Keith was so _stupid_.

Shiro’s _fiancé_.

Adam.

If there was anyone at the Garrison that he could still trust… it would be Adam.

Keith bolted off his bed, searching for the shoes that he had kicked off after his fight with Pidge. He shoved his combat boots onto his feet, and then tucked his phone into his pocket.

Adam’s apartment was just off campus, and… it was only eight. He would still be awake. Keith knew the way there like the back of his hand, had frequently joined Shiro and Adam for dinner in the early days of his schooling at the Garrison.

Even if Adam didn’t believe him… but, no, he would. Adam had always believed Keith about everything before. There would be no reason for that to change now.

Keith practically bounced out of his dorm building, buoyed by the fact that he was doing _something_ , _anything_ to actually help Lance.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, so loud he almost didn’t notice when Lance’s voice crackled through his shitty earphone speakers.

“Hey. Things are… a little weird. Mind if I unload?”

Keith felt a frown tugging at the corner of his lips. A little weird? That didn’t sound good.

“Lay it on me,” he said.

“Thanks,” Lance said. “So… you know how this peak has seemed to sort of, I don’t know, stay just out of reach? I thought it was just an optical illusion. Like, I must be getting closer, but the various hills and valleys on this moon were playing tricks with my perspective. But now I’m not so sure. I know this sounds crazy, but… no. Never mind. It sounds crazy because it _is_ crazy. Forget it.”

“Wait!” Keith practically yelled, too much, too fast. “Tell me,” He insisted, forcing his voice quieter. The campus was quiet and still around him, his voice seemed to ring in the air.

“Look, this is nuts. But… I think the peak might actually be sort of… wavering. In, like, an existential sense. I’ll be looking at it, and then I’ll blink, and for a second, it just… it won’t be there. And then, of course, it’s there again, and I’ll question my sanity. And that’s happened about a half a dozen times since I got down into the crater.”

Keith instinctually slowed down, almost to a complete stop. “Okay,” he agreed. “That is weird.”

“I know, right?” Lance said. Keith imagined him nodding his head. “But here’s what’s really tripping me out: I’ve been walking for about an hour now. More or less making a beeline for this place. And just a minute ago, I looked down… and there was another set of boot prints in the sand. I don’t mean in an inspirational poster, ‘that’s when I carried you’ kind of sense. I mean, these are exactly the same shape and size as my own footprints. As if I was doubling back on my own path. How is that even possible?”

“Are you… are you sure they’re yours?” Keith asked, because what else do you say when someone on an abandoned moon tells you they see footprints?

“Well…” Lance hesitated. “I mean, who else’s could they possibly be? They’re exactly my size, exactly the same tread pattern. I don’t know. I’m not sure how I could be walking in a straight line, and walking in circles at the same time. I don’t want to think about it any more. I’m just gonna put my head down and keep walking forward.”

Well, Keith pursed his lips. He had better do the same. He was most of the way to Adam’s apartment by this point.

He tucked his phone back into his pocket.

Keith rounded the last few corners to Adam’s apartment building, and ignored the buzzer in favor of typing in the four-digit passcode he had memorized years ago. He hadn’t been to Adam’s in awhile, they had tried after Shiro… but it had never felt the same, and once Keith got kicked out of the Garrison the visits had stopped completely. He had gone to see Adam just once, after he re-enrolled, but the visit had been brief. It was just easier to… not be around Adam, not when all of the memories of Adam were so painfully intertwined with Keith’s memories of Shiro.

He climbed the stairs to the third floor quickly, navigating the halls of the apartment complex by muscle memory alone, until he was standing in front of a blue door. The silver number - 322 - glistened on the door.

Keith took a deep breath, before reaching up and rapping his knuckles against the wood of the doorframe.

He held his breath, waiting to see if Adam would answer the door. It was late. He might be sleeping. Or out. On a date or something.

The thought sat uncomfortably in Keith’s stomach.

There was rustling on the other side of the door seconds before it was thrown open, Adam’s polite smile fading into complete surprise. “Keith?” He asked, sounding startled. He was clearly dressed for bed, his brown hair tossed, his glasses perched on his nose. He was wearing the stupid pajamas that Shiro had bought him for Christmas. The ones with cartoon protons and electrons that Keith had mocked mercilessly.

Keith shoved past him, into the apartment that had once felt like a second home. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he warned.

Adam just blinked at him. “Keith, are you okay? What are you…” he paused, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall of his living room. “It’s eight at night, what are you doing here?”

“I needed to talk to someone at the Garrison that I could trust,” Keith said, fumbling to pull his phone out of his pocket.

Slowly, Adam shut the door, following Keith further into the room. “Keith, what’s going on?”

“Okay. So. Um. Pidge and I, that is Katie Holt and I, we’ve been… doing research into the Kerberos crash,” Keith said, the words coming out too fast. He felt flustered. He _hated_ feeling flustered.

“Keith,” Adam said, and this time his voice sounded a little like a warning. Mixed with pain. Still fresh, still raw. “I know you think that you’re going to find some… closure or something, but Shiro is _gone_. You need to… you need to accept that.”

Keith ignored him. “Have you seen any of the news stories about the SS Atlas going dark?”

Adam looked like he was getting whiplash from the change in conversation. “Of course I have. It’s been all over the news.”

“It went down in Solar System NB-71. That’s the _same_ solar system that the Kerberos went down in. I _know_ that’s where the Atlas went down because I’ve _made contact_ with a member of its crew,” Keith said, holding his phone out between them like it was a lifeline. “Adam, please, you’ve got to believe me. I was _just_ talking to him.”

Adam pinched his nose. “Do I even want to _question_ how on earth you made contact with someone from the Atlas? I mean, Keith, this is crazy. The Garrison is freaking out because their systems aren’t picking anything up.”

Huh. So the Garrison really hadn’t gotten Lance’s distress call.

“Pidge made this app, and… I mean, neither of us are entirely sure how they did it, but somehow I’m picking up the signal.” Keith pulled the app open on his phone, showing the screen to Adam. “It works like a two-way radio, only Lance tends to keep his channel closed except when he’s talking to me.”

“Wait,” Adam said. “Lance as in Lance Álvarez, the Garrison student who was onboard?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah. He survived the crash, and he’s… stuck on this moon… and he needs a rescue ship… or… or something. _Anything_. You have to help me. Please,” Keith pleaded.

Adam’s resolve cracked. Keith didn’t think that he had ever pleaded for anything before. “Are you sure this kid is legit?” He asked.

Keith nodded. “I know he is. Here,” he unplugged his earphones. “I’ll let you talk to him the next time he checks in. He’s hiking right now, going to explore some weird peak that Pidge thinks is messing with the polarity of the moon. There isn’t really much else for him to do, Pidge thought maybe he could fix up a ship, but the Atlas was pretty trashed and the other caravel he found was missing its engine.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Back up. He found another caravel? Tell me everything, start from the beginning.”

Keith followed Adam into the living room, sitting on the coffee table in the way that Adam always hated, and he started from the beginning.

< < < > > >

Keith was in the middle of telling Adam about the weird peak and how Lance swore that it seemed to disappear when Lance started speaking again.

“I’m here. I’m finally here. I sort of can’t believe it. I know, a lot of times, people talk about how they ‘never’ thought they were going to achieve some goal… but I think it’s usually hyperbole. Not in this case, though. I literally thought I’d never make it here. It’s big. Bigger than I would have thought. Not just taller, but bigger around the base. There’s a recessed area, maybe fifty yards to my left. Should I check that out, or scout around the perimeter first?”

Keith’s eyes were glued on Adam, waiting to see his reaction, so he didn’t miss the way that he stiffened.

“Lance?” Adam said slowly, leaning in slightly towards the phone.

Keith heard a sharp intake of breath. “Professor Sharma!” Lance said. “Boy, is it nice to hear another voice. I mean… no offense, Keith.”

Keith let out a shaky laugh. “None taken. I’m guessing you two know each other?”

“I had Professor Sharma for my junior Calc class,” Lance said. “He was the only one who ever explained Calc in a way I could understand.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Adam’s lips. “While I appreciate the sentiment, I understand you’ve had an interesting few days.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed dryly. “I think that might be the understatement of the century. Wait. So if I’m talking to you, then that means…”

“It means,” Keith said, filling in the blanks, “that I decided there was someone at the Garrison we could trust. According to Adam, the Garrison never picked up your S.O.S. which means they aren’t covering up anything about the Atlas crash. We think,” he glanced over at Adam to double check. “First thing in the morning Adam is going to find Admiral Sanda and then we’re gonna send out a rescue ship.”

“WHOOOOP!” Lance cheered. “That’s a relief. I was getting sick of all this sand. And coming from a kid who grew up by the beach, that’s saying something.”

“You’ll still have to keep yourself alive while you wait for the rescue ship to reach you,” Adam warned. “It won’t be easy, but, Lance, we’re not leaving a student to die out there. We’re not leaving _you_ to die out there.”

There was a harsh undercurrent to Adam’s voice, Keith wondered if Lance could hear it.

“That’s good to hear,” Lance said, a little quieter this time. “Because I really didn’t _want_ to die out here. Okay. Um. Not to cut the joyous celebration short or anything, but I’m going to start scouting this perimeter. I really don’t like the idea of just standing out here doing nothing. Okay… I’m taking off in a circle to my right. I’ll look into that opening when I get to it from the other direction. First impressions: like I said on day one, squinting at this thing all the way from the Atlas, it kicks oddly geometrically perfect. Almost like it was _carved_ out of this moon’s dense white rock, rather than forming naturally through erosion and upheaval. And yeah, I know, it sounds crazy to say that this peak looks built… but it’s not the craziest thing I’ve said today. That was supposed to sound comforting, but it sure didn’t come out that way. The thing to keep in mind is -” Lance’s voice cut off, crackling back through just seconds later with a “ _Holy crap_!”

“Are you okay?” Keith asked, leaning closer to the phone, as if that would actually bring himself closer to Lance.

“Yeah. Yeah. I mean, physically I’m fine. I’m just more freaked out than I’ve ever been in my entire life. You’re not going to believe this, but… there’s writing on the outer wall of this peak.”

Keith shared a nervous glance with Adam. “What kind of writing?” He heard himself ask.

“I feel like every moment I spend out here, I ratchet up the crazy another ten degrees,” Lance said. “I have no idea what it says. It’s… I’m ninety-nine percent sure its Chinese characters. Does this mean… has someone else survived a wreck and made it to this peak? Why wouldn’t we have heard about something like this? I doubt there’s much for me to do other than keep walking around this thing. I forgot to pack my Chinese-to-English dictionary. You never have one when you really need it. Okay, back to exploring.”  

Keith glanced over at Adam. “I told you I’m not crazy,” he said.

Adam nodded. “You’re not crazy.”

“If… if other people survived… do you think it’s possible that Shiro did too?” Keith asked hesitantly.

Adam shifted. “Even if he did… Keith, it’s been _two_ years.”

Keith nodded. After a pause, he started to speak again. “I _really_ want Lance to make it back okay. I don’t want his family to go through what we went through. I want…” he cut himself off, dragging a hand through his hair. “I want Lance to make it back okay.”

Adam reached forward, clapping his hand to Keith’s shoulder. “We’ll do everything we can,” he promised.

Keith wasn’t sure that it was going to be enough.

< < < > > >

Adam had pressed a mug of coffee into Keith’s hands, but it had gone cold while he stared at his phone, willing Lance to start speaking again.

Adam, for his part, had disappeared somewhere with his cellphone, promising to get in contact with other people at the Garrison that could be trusted. Keith didn’t even have the energy to question who that consisted of.

The weight of the stress from the past few days was heavy on his shoulders, sleep tugging at his eyelids. But he couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not when Lance had _finally_ made it to the mysterious peak. Not when Pidge was blowing up his phone with text notifications demanding to know where he was.

Keith, guiltily, had sent off a text urging them not to worry, that he was safe and with people who could help. Pidge had stopped texting after that.

“Woah! What the hell?!” Keith’s phone burst back to life, startling his eyelids open from where they had been drooping closed.

“Lance?” Keith asked.

“I was walking around the perimeter with my little makeshift compass in hand, watching it slowly move with me, like it should. When all of a sudden it starts jolting backwards and forward, spinning like a kid at a dance party on really good drugs. And then the whole peak just… shimmered green and disappeared for a second. I didn’t blink. I didn’t look away. I reached a hand into the space where it used to be and there was just nothing. Air. And then I yanked my hand back, quick, because it started to reappear. And now my compass is working fine again. _What in the actual hell_?”

Keith’s eyes flickered towards the closed door to Adam’s bedroom. “How could the whole peak just… disappear? That’s insane.”

“It is,” Lance agreed. “It absolutely is. But _I’m_ not insane. I could not be more certain that I experienced this. I could have believed everything up to this point was just an optical illusion. A trick of the light. My exhausted brain putting one over on me. But this… I was _right here_ when this happened. This was some next-level, otherworldly stuff. Okay. O...kay. I’m just going to keep walking around the magic disappearing man-made moon mountain. That’s a normal thing people say, right?”

“No,” Keith shook his head even though he knew Lance couldn’t see him. “No, I don’t think it is.”

Lance snorted. “I guess surviving a spaceship crash and getting stuck on a creepy-ass moon kinda puts you outside of the realm of ‘normal people,’ doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” Keith agreed. “But then, I’m pretty sure that making contact with said survivor when the government can’t even manage to do it puts me outside the realm of ‘normal people,’ too.”

“Touché,” Lance said. “Okay. Wait. I’m… yep. I’ve made it all the way around the peak. No more writing on the walls, that I could find. And no more temporospatial shimmering. That’s a sentence I never dreamed I’d be saying in my life. Even when I _did_ win a lottery to ride in a spaceship. So I’m back at the recessed area. All right. I’m going to try not to be thoroughly unsettled by this, but I have to tell you, it’s gonna be an uphill battle. Because the recession in the peak wall? It’s a doorway. I don’t mean, like, it’s a cave entrance that naturally formed in the rock, or that sort of thing. I mean, it’s a _doorway_. With the right angles and everything. At human scale. Built for someone of my size. Built for _me_? What the hell do I even do with this information?”

“You have to…” Keith cleared his throat against the sudden lump that seemed to have formed. “I think you have to go through.”

Lance took a deep breath. “Here does nothing. Through the doorway. It opens into a sort of nondescript hallway, rock walls on all sides. ‘Nondescript’ other than that it, too, is at human scale. Which does actually seem like something worth mentioning. Once the light from outdoors tapers off, it’s dark as pitch in here, which is not helping my nerves at all… but there’s light ahead. Distantly. In the meantime, I guess I can spark up a glow rod and-”

“Lance?!”

“ _Oh holy crap_!”

“Lance? Are you okay?” Keith asked, hating that he couldn’t see what was happening.

“Okay. I know. It’s happened to me before out here. But never this close. I heard the echo, bouncing off these rock walls, before I even heard the source. And I was looking around, trying to figure out where that scuttling sound was coming from… and I saw this faint green glow, near the floor. And it took a second, but then it resolved itself into… I swear, it was a bunch of little pairs of eyes. And as I’m trying to process that, one of… of _whatever_ they were… it brushed against my leg. It didn’t hurt me. It just kinda bounced right off and kept running, with the rest of them, deeper into the mountain. But… this means… I’m not alone in here. I liked it so much better when I was alone in here.” Lance mourned.

Keith closed his eyes. Trying to process this information. Was it… was it possible that Lance had just discovered some kind of _alien_ life form?

“Lance, you need to follow those things. They’re _alive_ , right? So there must be… a water source or something.”

“Those… creatures - it sounds so weird to say that; it’s not a word I thought I’d be using on this moon - anyways, those creatures went running toward the light, ahead of me. So I guess that’s where I’m going, too. Why would it get _brighter_ the deeper inside a mountain you go? There’s just no way that makes sense… unless there were, I don’t know, _electrical lights_ in here. What. The. Hell. I… I’m not sure I can even describe this to you. I don’t know what I was expecting to find when I reached the peak, but I promise… it wasn’t this.”

“Lance, what do you see? You have to tell me,” Keith urged.

“Okay. I’m standing in a room. In the interior of a mountain, let’s not forget. It’s… I guess you would have to call it a ‘control room.’ I don’t know what, exactly, it’s controlling… but there’s really no answer to that question that’ll ease my mind. The room itself isn’t very large - large enough to stand up in, and move around a little, and that’s about it. But in banks on the walls… there are computer systems. Functioning computer systems. There are brand names I recognize, a sort of mix-and-match patchwork of monitors and CPUs. Man, Hunk would be having a field day right now. There are even a couple of chairs in front of the computers… clearly taken from some old starship flight deck and repurposed here, to build a freaking workstation. On a moon. This all must be salvaged parts from ships. The computers, the chained generators, the wiring… Oh. Yeah. That’s the other thing. The wiring. There’s _tons_ of it. Bunched and bundled. And it all leads out of the computer banks and up, into a hole in the room’s ceiling. And from there, who knows where?”

“Can you explore the wiring? Try to figure out what it’s for?” Keith asked.

This was _seriously_ fucked up.

“There’s not much more to explore, really. The bundled wires are as thick as a tree trunk - maybe eighteen inches in diameter? They lead up through a hole in the ceiling that’s just big enough to let them through. The only way I could find out more is to chip away the rock of the ceiling. And since I don’t have a pickaxe, nor any way to get up to that height, that’s not really an option.”

“Okay…” Keith furrowed his brows. “What about the computers?”

“This… this is wild. This screen is displaying a topographical map of the area. There’s some pixelation, but that’s clearly what it is. It’s centered on this peak, inside the giant crater that I just walked halfway across. But I can toggle out, and scroll. If I go… yup. There’s the wreck of the caravel. It shows up as a bright, broken brick against the dark of the moonscape. And if I keep panning to the south… past the crater, past the canyon… there’s the Atlas. Two bright pieces, glowing back at me from the screen. This is surreal. Where are these images even coming from? Is there some sort of satellite up there? A network of them? I wonder how much of the moon this imaging covers? Like, if I keep scrolling, will… Oh my god.”

“Lance?” Keith asked, feeling something cold clutching in his chest. “Lance, are you okay?”

“Um… no. No. I really don’t think I am. There’s another bright green block. Southwest of the Atlas site. And… oh, no. There’s another one.Pull back. Pull back as far as it’ll go. Sweet mother of… there are _dozens_. Dozens of shipwrecks. On this moon. How… _how_? This is… impossible.”

“How many, total?” Keith heard himself ask, but it felt like the words were coming from somewhere outside of himself.

“I’ve counted… twenty-nine… thirty… and I still haven’t seen the whole surface of the moon yet. My god. How many ships have been downed, here? And how have we not heard anything about it in the news? This place is the damn Bermuda Triangle of outer space! There are other monitors, too. This one’s idle.”

“Wake it up,” Keith instructed him. Then, “ _Adam_?! Adam, you need to hear this!”

The door to Adam’s bedroom cracked open, and he emerged, his phone cradled between his chin and shoulder. “Keith? Is everything okay?”

“No,” Keith said, feeling like he was going to be sick. “Lance found a control room. And satellite imagery of at least thirty other wrecks.”

Adam swore softly. “He’s sure that’s what he’s looking at?”

Keith nodded.

“Okay,” Lance said. “I just nudged it awake, and… a language option menu? Not what I was expecting to see. Let’s go with ‘English’ since it’s right there at the top. And it’s what I speak. Although I guess I could choose ‘Spanish.’ Okay. Here’s what the screen says. ALL SYSTEMS: OPERATIONAL. BROADCASTING. TIME TO PULSE: and then there’s a sequence of numbers moving so quickly, I can’t read them. Whatever ‘TIME TO PULSE’ means, we appear to be counting down to it. I can’t tell you that this notion fills me with confidence. There’s another idle monitor next to it. Just gonna jog that one awake too. A familiar look to this screen. It’s like the proximity alarm I set up back at the caravel. Slightly different model, different bells and whistles, but at least I know exactly what I’m looking at, here. It’s functioning, too, which… no. No way.”

“What is it? What do you see?” Keith asked, sharing a concerned glance with Adam. Something was _wrong_. Something was _very_ , _very_ wrong.

“On the screen of the proximity alarm… there’s something moving. Something outside the peak. Moving toward the peak. Moving towards _me_. Something… human-shaped,” Lance’s voice sounded chilled, like he was forcing himself to stay calm, and was only barely managing it.

“Are… are you sure?” Keith asked. His stomach swooped. Because there was no way… that was impossible. Except there were at least apparently thirty crashes along the moon. Was it really so crazy that someone else might have survived?

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my brief and - lately - crazy life. That is a person. And that person is coming _here_.”

“Okay, Lance, you need to stay right where you are,” Keith said, letting out a relieved breath when Adam nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that’s the best plan. Give myself a while to mentally prepare for this. As if there were any way to mentally prepare for this. Because there’s no doubt, they’re heading right for where I am. And then what? Am I being rescued? Is it another survivor? I’ve got some time, might as well see what else I can do with these computers,” Lance said, “that should keep me busy.”

“Sure,” Keith agreed. “See what else you can find out.”

“Oh. Man. I might’ve just hit the payload. This one’s a sector-wide. It’s also the one that the majority of the wires seem to be coming out of. Which… oh, woah. I think those wires comprise a broadcasting antenna. And that means this peak, this whole structure… it’s got to be some sort of broadcasting _tower_. Seated at the center of an enormous crater that… I don’t know, maybe it functions like a parabolic reflector?”

Keith blinked at the phone. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a giant satellite dish. Five miles across. I would go looking for premium cable channels if it weren’t for the fact that my mind is _melting_ right now.”

“Lance, you’ve got to check out that screen,” Keith said.

“If this place is broadcasting, which it is, and I have access to the broadcasting center, which I do, then every second I’m not sending out an S.O.S. is a second I’m wasting! Give me a minute to see if I can nose my way into the proceedings.”

The communication line clicked off.

Keith glanced over to Adam. “Is it possible there would be another ship within range to catch the S.O.S. signal?”

“Another Garrison ship? No. Is it possible one of the other government’s has a ship in the area… possibly,” Adam said. He slid his phone away from his chin. “I haven’t been able to get in contact with Admiral Sanda directly, but I’ve spoken to some of the others in her department. They’re going to track her down and then get back to me.”

Keith nodded. “Okay. With any luck-”

A knock at the door interrupted him, and Keith glanced warily at Adam. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Adam shook his head, but he rose to check the door.

Barely a minute later, he called “Keith, I think it’s for you,” and a familiar brunette figure burst into the room, ducking under Adam’s arm.

“Pidge?” Keith asked, as the tiny figure skidded to a stop in front of him.

“Is everything okay with Lance? I think I figured something out about that peak. I think it’s-”

“Yes!” Lance’s voice interrupted them. “I managed to interrupt the feed, type an S.O.S. message, get mad at myself for not knowing S.O.S. in more than two languages, decide ‘S.O.S.’ is probably pretty universal… and then get the feed broadcasting again. If anyone stumbles through this sector - or, hell, maybe just brushed up against it, I don’t know how powerful the signal is - they’ll know I’m here. Even if I’m not totally sure where ‘here’ is. This is great. In spite of all the weirdness, I actually have hope for the first-”

Lance’s voice cut off, a robotic female voice emitting from the phone instead, and Keith felt his heart stop. “Communication interrupted. Date/Time stamp invalid. Searching. Reacquainting signal. Establishing connection. Receiving message.”

“...is happening?! Hello? _Hello_?” Lance’s voice was panicked.

“It’s okay,” Keith said, feeling like he could breathe again. “I’m here.”

“Oh. Wow. I’m glad to hear it. Because for a minute there, you weren’t. Or maybe _I_ wasn’t. I don’t know what that looked like from you end, but from where I’m standing - okay, let’s be honest, from where I’ve crumpled into a nervous heap on one of these salvage command deck chairs - there was this sort of humming noise that was _sudden_ and _everywhere_ , and my vision started to go a little swimmy… and I just had time to look at the monitors, and I saw that the TIME TO PULSE countdown was at all zeroes… and then the whole world just… fell apart. Like everything moved away from me, and I moved away from it, simultaneously and instantaneously. Before I even knew it was happening, it was over. Everything was back to ‘normal’ - and I use that word loosely. But… I think I just experienced what happened when I was outside the peak, and it shimmered and disappeared… except this time, I was _inside_ the peak. And I shimmered and disappeared _with_ it.”

“Do you feel okay?” Keith asked. Because what else do you say when someone tells you they just phased out of reality?

“I guess I feel alright,” Lance said, and Keith could imagine the way he would shrug. “Like I said, it happened so fast. I didn’t really have time to react. If I stopped to consider what just happened to me, I’d probably get worse motion sickness than Hunk. Can you get that from going out of phase with reality? Yeah, the communicator gives an ‘invalid date/time stamp’ message. So… what the hell date and time was it reading? This is… oh. Hey. I, uh, I have some news to report. Not sure where it lands on the whole Good News/Bad News spectrum.”

“Please try for ‘good,’” Keith said. If he was superstitious, he would cross his fingers. Well. Maybe he would do it anyways.

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “That’d be my preference, too. Let’s put it this way. I’m not exactly sure what to make of this. Best case scenario, I’m about to get really, _really_ rescued. Because where there used to be one human-shaped figure approaching my location… now there are four.”

“Should you… should you go out and meet them?” Keith asked. Four figures. Maybe they were survivors from the caravel crash.

Or the Kerberos, a part of his mind whispered.

What if it was Shiro? Matt? Sam?

But that would only be three.

There were four figures.

Pidge was holding their hands to their mouth. Adam’s fingers flexed around Keith’s shoulder.

“I’m a little wary of that idea, honestly. I feel like, if this is a rescue team, then I can wait a few extra minutes to get rescued. I made it this long already. If it’s stragglers from another downed ship… they might be crazed from wandering through the desert for days, or weeks. I mean, I’ve only been wandering since the day before yesterday, and I think I’m about half-crazed, myself. Maybe it’d be better to wait and see how they react to this place, and make sure they know I’m a stranger here, too. And… if they’re not rescuers _or_ survivors… if they’re something worse… then I sure as hell don’t want to deliver myself into their arms.”

Keith nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.”

“That’s what I think, too,” Lance said. “If I’m understanding the scale of this map correctly, they’re probably still twenty minutes out, give or take. So- wait. What was that? That scuttling sound again! Oh. Man. This is the first time I’ve heard it when there have been lights on. I might actually be able to see whatever the hell it is that’s making the noise. Whatever it was that brushed by my leg. Whatever it is that has glowing green eyes. Do I even _want_ to see whatever this thing turns out to be? The sound is coming from… wait… I think it’s behind the monitor bank. Running around in the wiring.”

“Step back from there,” Keith warned. “We have no idea what these things are.”

“Yes. Good plan. No sense in actively hunting whatever creepy alien creature is scampering around in the wiring, is there? I mentioned before, I’ve seen an awful lot of sci-fi/horror movies. Over the last couple days, it’s become pretty evident that I’ve seen _too many_. More than was good for me,” Lance said dryly. “But I know, this scenario _never_ ends well for the person wearing the ‘Hello, My Name is LANCE’ nametag. It’s… it’s louder over here. Behind the pulse countdown computer. This is me, stepping away from the pulse countdown computer, not rushing headlong into… _oh my god_.”

“ _Lance_? What happened?”

“One of them just stuck its head out! It’s… the things that were making the noise… the things that ran by me earlier… oh my god! It’s my mice!”

“Are you certain?” Keith asked. Could it… was it _even_ possible?

“I’m absolutely certain. The first one who stuck his head out… it was Platt. He has a white patch over his eyes. It’s very distinctive. There’s no question. It’s him. Except that patch used to be over a little pink eye. And now… that eye is green. Luminescent green. Glowing. And looking right at me.”

“Do _not_ get any closer,” Keith warned.

“Yeah. I won’t get too near them. That’s fine. One one hand, I handled these mice so much, I think of them more as friends than test subjects. But on the other hand, that was before they had spooky, bioluminescent eyes. Not to mention… they’ve traveled as far across this moon as I have. Were they following me? Or… were they drawn to the peak somehow? That’s a haunting notion. But at the same time, their glowing green eyes and the glowing green peak do have that, you know, ‘glowing green’ thing in common.”

“What are the mice doing?” Pidge asked, leaning forward.

“Oh, hey, you’re here too. The mice are just… acting like mice. It’s unsettling. I mean, apart from their eyes, they look just like they did. But then they turn and stare at me and they seem so… otherworldly. Alien. This, on top of everything else that was happening. The computers in this mountain. The visitors. The time/space disappearance. I just… I need a few minutes to process this.”

“No! _Lance_!” Keith said, but the communicated clicked silent. He let out a near feral growl.

Pidge rocked back on their heels. “None of this makes any sense… I thought maybe the peak was designed to be some kind of satellite. You know, something to lure ships in?”

Keith nodded. “It is. At least, Lance thinks so. He found a broadcasting… thing. He said that the creator acts like a…”

“Parabolic reflector,” Pidge nodded.

Adam was frowning. “But it sounds like there’s something wrong with those mice. I _really_ don’t like the idea of Lance being on that moon any longer than he needs to.”

“He might not be,” Keith pointed out. “Those four figures have to be getting closer by now.”

If it were possible, Adam’s frown deepened. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing, Keith. If what Lance is saying is true… someone _built_ this peak. Someone has been luring ships in. And we have no idea why.”

Pidge bit their lip, chewing on it. A nervous habit they had never shaken.

“A ship.” Lance’s voice crackled through. “Oh my god! There’s a ship! There’s a ship in this sector. I can’t tell… I mean, it’s too early to know whether they’re on an arc to this moon. Whether they got my S.O.S. But they entered the sector map, and the monitor lit up like Christmas. I imagine my eyes did too. I’ve been sort of slowly pacing the room, just trying to keep my distance from the mice. But I went running to check it out in a heartbeat. Creepy space rodents be damned. Because this is _huge_ news. Please, please, please let them pick up my distress signal. Please let them get me off this godforsaken rock. All I ask is that… huh. _That_ doesn’t seem good.”

“What doesn’t seem good?” Keith echoed.

“There’s, uh… there’s something on the other computer. You remember the one with the TIME TO PULSE countdown? That one just lit up too. There’s new text on the screen. And I don’t like the way it sounds. It says: SECTOR BREACHED. TARGET ACQUIRED. TRACKING. I think it’s reasonable to assume that’s in reference to the new ship. The one that’s potentially coming to rescue me. The one that I would _really_ prefer not to be a ‘target.’”

“Can you override it?” Keith asked, looking over to Pidge. If anyone would know anything about overriding a system, it would be them.

“I don’t know. I’d love to, but - unlike in all those B-grade science fiction movies I love so much - there’s no big red button with the words MANUAL OVERRIDE stamped on it here. I know enough about computers to torrent some BBS shows or program little ‘choose your own adventure’ games for fun… but trying to hack into this thing and override a weapons system? Unless the password is ‘password,’ I might be in trouble. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to try, though.”

“Pidge,” Keith said, handing over his phone. “If there’s anyone who could help him, it’s you.”

Pidge nodded. “Okay, Lance. I need you to tell me what you see.”

“Okay, I’m really over my head with this computer system. I think the easiest thing to do is send a warning to the ship. I already know I can send a general message, because that’s what I did with the S.O.S. I’d have to hope they read English. And… I don’t even know what I’d be warning them of, really. I don’t know what’s targeting them. Missiles, some kind of projectile? Or… no. Of course not. Lance, you dummy.”

Pidge’s eyes widened. And at the same time, both Pidge and Lance declared aloud “It’s a _pulse_.”

“It’s an electromagnetic pulse, probably,” Pidge said, filling the silence Lance had left. “Some kind of directed-energy weapon. Like a particle beam. A strong enough energy beam, set loose in the vacuum of space, you could really do some damage.” Pidge looked a little like they were going to be sick. But they also looked a little impressed. “You could tear a spaceship like the Atlas right in half.”

“Yeah. I think that must be what happened,” Lance said slowly. “The Atlas, and who knows how many more… all those bright green bricks glowing on the map screen. But why? What possible reason could there be for blasting ships out of the sky and then just leaving them to rot?”

Keith shook his head. “Who knows.”

“Impossible to say,” Lance agreed. “Just like everything else around here. If I get home alive, I’m going to have the same kind of PTSD that the kids who visited Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory had.”

“Fewer cavities, though,” Keith said automatically.

Lance snorted. “Ha! That’s a very thin silver lining on a very large, very dark cloud, my friend.”

“How close are your visitors?” Keith asked, biting his lip. How much longer did they have?

“The four human-shapes - and yes, there are still only four, and I’m feeling grateful that the unknown is at least finite - they’re maybe ten minutes out from the peak. I’m just going to stay right where I am. No need to go out and meet them; for better or worse, they’re headed straight towards me. Besides, between keeping an eye on the mice and trying to keep my potential rescuers from being shot out of the sky… I’ve already got plenty on my hands, thanks.”

“Have you figured out how to warn the ship?” Keith asked. Pidge leaned closer, like they wished they could jump through the phone screen and see the computers Lance was talking about for themselves.

“So, I mean, the good news is that I already know how to break into the broadcast and get my own message into the feed. Bad news? Nothing has me convinced that there’s a way for that ship to respond to me. I don’t know yet whether they actually received my original S.O.S. message, as opposed to just chancing upon the sector. And I’ll have no way of knowing whether they’re able to pick up my warning. So all this ‘desperately trying to reprogram the mysterious computer system’ could all be in vain.”

“Keep at it, just in case. If there’s something you can do to help them… you have to at least try,” Keith said.

“Yeah, of course,” Lance agreed. “I mean, I’ve got so much nervous energy at the moment, I’ve gotta burn it off in some fashion. Better I should make an attempt at something proactive with the computers, rather than, I don’t know… heroically twiddling my thumbs, or bravely picking my nose, or whatever. Anyways, give me a minute or two.”

The communicator clicked off.

“Pidge?” Keith asked.

Pidge shrugged. “If I could see the computer, I could probably figure it out no problem. But I have no idea what Lance is looking at right now. I could try to make some educated guesses, but that’s all they would be.”

Keith pursed his lips. That wasn’t good enough.

“Annnnnnd…. sent!” Lance declared. “Okay, whoever’s out there in that starship, I hope you got my message. And I hope you’re on your way to come rescue me. But I hope you’ve got your defense systems at the ready, ‘cause you’re being targeted. And I hope you can defend against whatever the weapon is, since I don’t really know its nature or power.”

“You can’t figure out how to override it?” Keith asked, desperately.

“If I had any idea how to do it, I would. But I can’t even get a clear read on the TIME TO PULSE, the numbers are moving so fast. There’s a part of me - the not very scientific part - that wonders what might happen if I just started unplugging things. Or, if that doesn’t work, if I just started bashing things,” Lance said.

Keith glanced over at Pidge. One look at their stricken face was enough to know that probably wasn’t a very good plan.

“Probably a bad idea,” Lance said, as if he could read Keith’s thoughts. “With my luck, I’d screw up the broadcasts I _want_ to be making, without solving the problems. But confidentially? Just between the… four of us? Sometimes, even the nerdiest of science nerds really wants to move ‘bashing things’ to the top of the list to try. Oh. Man. The visitors are almost here. I’m coated in cold sweat, and there's a lump in my throat that has nothing to do with the terrible meals I’ve been eating. I don’t think I’ve ever been this anxious in my whole-”

Lance cut himself off. “Oh, now what?!”

“Lance? That doesn’t sound good,” Keith said.

“Uh, no… I kinda don’t think it is. The mice are acting really psychotic all of a sudden. I heard this squealing sound, coming from the corner where the mice are eating. They must be pretty hungry, I threw them some of the mice food I found earlier to distract them, and they got through everything I had on offer. Pretty fast, too. So I look over, and Chulatt and Platt are fighting over the last scraps of it. But… _ah_ … it’s escalating! It went from normal mice squeaks to this, aahhhh, this… it’s like a _shrieking_. It’s painful! Seriously, it’s making the fillings in my teeth vibrate! The other two have started doing it too. They’re just circling, like…. nnnnnn…. like cheering fans at a boxing march.”

“You need to get away from that,” Keith said. “I don’t think those are your mice anymore.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Lance said, between gasps of air. “I was already backing away. I should be adding all of this to my notes back at the Atlas. This definitely qualifies as atypical for these little guys. But I don’t see anything to write on, or with, around h… _oh my god_! _What the hell am I even looking at_?”

“What _are_ you looking at?” Keith demanded, frustrated.

Adam leaned forward. “Lance, you need to tell us what’s happening.”

“They’re… they’re _killing_ each other. I mean that in a completely literal sense. These were the gentlest, sweetest two mice of the test group, and… I can’t watch this. The sounds are… oh, god… they’re just ripping into each other’s flesh. There should be… huh. There should be so much blood. But there isn’t. There isn’t any blood at all. What the hell is going on?! Why has _every single thing_ gone off the deep end since I got to the peak?” Lance’s voice had risen in pitch, in speed, as he panicked. Keith could _hear_ it.

“Calm down, Lance. You need to breathe,” he said. Lance needed to stay calm, he couldn’t lose control. Not now.

“That’s just it,” Lance said, still sounding panicked. “I’m afraid to even breathe. I keep waking up with green spit. The same kind of green that’s in the mice’s eyes. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed that. And the best I can figure is that it’s a side effect of whatever’s in the atmosphere. Whatever I’m _breathing_. Is that how they got this way? Does that mean _I’m_ going to turn out that way, too, if I keep breathing this air? Because I don’t think I could take that knowledge. I don’t know if I could keep breathing, knowing it’ll turn me into… _that_.”

“You _have_ to keep breathing. Please, Lance, you can’t give up now,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I know. And maybe I’ll luck out. I’m a lot bigger than the mice. Maybe I’d have to take in a great deal more air before I start experiencing the side effects. Not knowing, though… _that’s_ what’s killing me, at the moment. I just wish… _oh god_. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.”

The communication cut out.

“Adam, we can’t wait until the morning. You need to get Admiral Sanda _now_. Lance can’t be on that moon any longer than necessary. Maybe there’s another ship near the sector, something we can do,” Keith said, eyes wide.

“Right now, Lance’s best chance for escape is the ship that’s already there,” Adam said calmly. How he managed to remain calm in even the most insane situations, Keith would never know. “But I agree. I’m going to go find Admiral Sanda and Professor Iverson. You two stay here, make sure you keep Lance calm until that ship gets there.”

Adam rose, grabbing a jacket from the hook by the door. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. _Stay here_.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Keith nodded.

Pidge dropped down to sit on the couch. “Promise.” They said seriously.

Adam nodded at them, before he slipped out his front door.

“Sorry,” Lance’s voice broke back through the static. “I couldn’t stop my gag reflex. Platt just tore into Chulatt’s guts, and, yeah, I turned around and threw up. Which I think is fair. My puke had a kind of green tint to it, too. So my mind is churning over the implications of that. Why won’t they stop _screaming_?”

“Throw them some more food,” Pidge suggested. “It seemed to be distracting them before.”

“Yes. Yeah. Good thinking. Normally, I’d be wary of using up any of my own rations like this… but I know there are more to be recovered from the caravel. And, apparently, from ships tossed all over the moon like toys in some hyperactive child’s bedroom. But whatever. Right now, the only thing I want is for them to stop making this hideous noise. Here you go, guys. Bon appetit,” Lance said sarcastically.

“Is it working?” Keith asked.

“It seems to be, actually,” Lance said, sounding slightly shocked. “They’re in kind of a frenzy over the food, but they’re quiet, and at least they’re leaving Chulatt’s body alone.”

“That poor little guy,” Pidge said softly.

“I know,” Lance said sadly. “He was such a little sweetheart. He didn’t… god, _nobody_ deserves to go out the way he did. I am currently getting very panicked about the possibility that I might go out the way he did. Believe me, I’m trying to figure out my options. There’s only the one corridor into - and out of - this control room. The proximity monitor tells me that, whoever or whatever the four people - please let them just be people - outside are… well, they’re gonna be here in a matter of minutes. If I hauled ass, I think I could sprint out of here and make it outside, before they get to the doorway. And then… what? I’d have a matter of a few seconds to assess the situation, figure out whether they’re a threat… and if they are… I pretty much have to opt for ‘flight,’ because ‘fight’ isn’t really an option when it’s four against one. My heart is jackhammering in the back of my throat right now. At least it’s louder than the mice. So… what do you think I should do?”

Keith glanced over at Pidge, who looked just as conflicted as he felt. If it was him… what would he do? He would go running out to greet the visitors, Keith knew himself well enough to know that. But he was impulsive. Lance wasn’t like that. So if Keith would go, then Lance should…

“You should stay put,” Keith said, even though the words went against every fiber of his being. “Wait and see what happens.”

“I… okay,” Lance sighed. “I was going to argue with you, but maybe this is the best plan. I mean, maybe I’m freaking myself out for _nothing_ , you know? Wouldn’t the odds overwhelmingly support the idea that the people approaching aren’t hostile? That they’re either a rescue team. Please, please, please. Or their fellow crash survivors who are in the same predicament I am? Or in worse shape, even? Maybe I can offer them food that keeps them from collapsing. Maybe they need pain meds more than I do, and I can give them a hand with that. Maybe _I’m_ the one who helps rescue _them_. We keep broadcasting an S.O.S. until some nearby ship hears us. Yes. Okay. I’m talking myself down off a ledge. All of this makes so much more sense… _oh my god Chulatt_!”

“Chulatt? Your dead mouse?” Keith echoed.

“There’s something… green... crawling out from his body. _Oh my god_. It’s… oh, god, it’s nothing that exists on Earth. It’s… it’s that same, you know, glowing, luminescent green… lite its whole body is made of the mice’s eyes. And it’s… how can I even… it’s _reeling_ sinews and veins back into its body mass, like, like retracting them from inside Chulatt, from inside his limbs… like this… this… _thing_ was, I don’t know, was working him like a puppet, a marionette. But from the _inside_!”

“It’s… it’s an alien?” Keith heard himself ask, because even all these years later he was still the boy who loved conspiracy theories and here was proof. Actual, physical _proof_ that aliens were _real_.

“Yes!” Lance agreed loudly. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen in real life! Or… I guess it’s native to this moon, so… I’m pretty sure that makes _me_ the alien. And it doesn’t seem to treat outsiders kindly. Aw, man,” Lance groaned. “What do I _do_?”

“You’ve got to get away!” Keith said, snapping back into the moment. If that… thing… was _inside_ the mouse…

“Believe me, I backpedaled into the opposite corner while I was telling you about the situation. I mean, the scientist in me is _fascinated_ at the idea that I’m witnessing an unknown life form here. And if my IEVA suit’s camera hadn’t crapped out day one, I would be recording every angle of this. But that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to bail if that thing so much as sneezes in the wrong direction,” Lance said. Which, okay, that made sense. Although, with the people coming in from outside… would he have anywhere to go?

“You have to kill it,” Keith said decisively. Sure, aliens were cool, but this one… it was making his skin crawl.

“ _What_?!” Pidge protested immediately, “you can’t _kill_ it! This is the first known encounter with an alien life form. You should… capture it, or something.”

“Capture it, kill it, there’s _nothing_ here,” Lance hissed. “It’s not like I’ve got a rolled-up newspaper handy so I can take a few swats at it. And Pidge is right. This is an unknown species. I hate to think that ‘kill it’ is how humans are going to make first contact. Besides, if I make an aggressive move on the wounded one… who’s to say the other three won’t turn on me?”

“Think about what it just did to Chulatt,” Keith protested. “You’re better off killing it.”

“No way, man. My only real killing implement is the sole of my boot! And if you think I want to stomp on whatever this little green creature is, until I’ve turned it into a little green smear… well, think again. I’ve been through a lot already, stranded out here, but I won’t put myself through _that_. I just… ugh. I hope everyone and _everything_ , both inside the peak and closing in fast, turns out sufficiently humane and lets me bury what’s left of Chulatt. I know it sounds silly, but I grew really attached to these little guys during our journey. They went through something amazing, and they deserve to be honored for it, I think… uh oh,” Lance trailed off. “Computer’s flashing at me.”

“What does it say?” Keith asked. Beside him, Pidge leaned closer to the phone.

“It’s… wow! This is kinda unbelievable! The ship that came cruising into this sector earlier? It’s decelerating! It’s heading right for this moon! And it’s not as if I can tell much of anything about telemetry from these old-school, blocky monitors and pixelated readouts… but if I had to guess? It’s locking in to land inside this crater! To come nab me from inside this mysterious peak! To get me the _hell off this rock_!” Lance’s excitement was audible. If Keith could see him, he imagined Lance doing some form of ridiculous victory dance that involved a lot of arm pumping.

He hated to be the one to burst Lance’s bubble, but “Are they still being targeted?”

“Oh.” Lance’s voice deflated. “Uh… yeah. I guess they are. I have no idea how to override whatever weapons system is hooked up. Hopefully, they’ve got their defenses up. Hopefully, they _can_ defend against an EMP, or a particle beam, or _whatever_ it is. Hopefully, they’re not jus-”

Lance’s voice cut out, the automated woman replacing it. “Communication interrupted. Date/Time stamp invalid. Searching. Reacquiring signal. Establishing connection. Receiving message.”

“... happening again. _No_! This is the last thing I need! What do I do if the ship comes to rescue me… and the peak decides to freaking _disappear_ with me inside it before they get here?” Lance was rambling, his voice tumbling out too quickly. Like he was talking to himself.

“Lance, it’s okay, we’re back. The connection is re-establishing itself quickly,” Keith said, as soon as he could get a word in.

“‘Quickly’ is a relative term, though,” Lance protested. “I mean, how long was that for you, just now?”

“Only a few seconds,” Keith replied, glancing at Pidge for confirmation. They nodded their agreement.

“Right, only a matter of moments,” Lance said. “But from my perspective? I was gone closer to _fifteen minutes_. Now, clearly, that’s not what happened on this end; you’re telling me it was fast… and the visitors outside are only a few steps closer than they were. So what the hell kind of nightmare is this place… and how trapped am I, now that I’m in here? Oh… oh, it’s happening again.”

“What’s happening again? Are you okay?” Keith asked.

“Yeah.” Lance replied. “I’m… I’m unhurt. But this just sets my teeth on edge. It’s that screaming sound that the mice were doing earlier. They’re at it again.”

“Are they out of food?” Pidge asked.

“Yes. They finished off what I gave them to eat, down to the smallest crumb. And I can’t keep tossing them a new snack every few minutes just to keep them quiet. I’ve just… I’ve got too many plates to keep spinning right now. The mice, the food supply, the ship, the computers, the… uh, well, I guess I just figured out which plate to spin next. For better or for worse. Who am I kidding?” Lance mourned. “It’s never for better.”

“Which plate?” Keith asked uneasily.

“The proximity alarm just dropped from four approaching shapes to three. Two. One. Zero. Because they’re no longer in proximity. They’re in _presence_. They’ve entered the peak. They’re in the same long, dark hallway that I walked through. The same hallway where the mice brushed by my leg, before I knew they were _my_ mice. Back when all four of them were alive - are… are _any_ of them actually alive? Carrying those green creatures around inside of them? - The same hallway where I really wish I’d have looked for side corridors. Places to hide in the dark; plan my escape, unnoticed. The same hallway that now stands between me and the freedom of outdoors. How screwed up is it that I’m now considering the cracked, uninhabitable surface of this moon to represent ‘freedom’? What do I do now, other than just waiting?”

“You could go meet them,” Keith offered, even though the thought of Lance going out into that dark hallway to face the unknown…

“What, like… meet them partway? In the very dark, very enclosed space of the hallway? Where I’m outnumbered, four to one? Could I maybe _not_ do that? Because it doesn’t sound like the best plan, from a tactical point of view, you know?” Lance asked, his voice too quick, his breath too short.

“Okay, then you need to stay put,” Keith said, feeling something in his own chest release at the decision.

“Yeah. If it’s all the same to you, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Lance let out a deep breath. “Plenty of weird crap in here already, without rushing headlong into even more of it. Anyhow, not much to do now but wait it out for the next few minutes, and… huh. Something weirder is happening with the little E.T. that was inside of Chulatt.”

“Weirder… what do you mean?” Keith asked.

“I mean,” Lance hesitated. “I’m not really sure how I’d even describe the little lifeform to you. The fact that the damn camera on this IEVA suit isn’t functioning is literally costing us history, right now. This thing, this _creature_ , it’s… for the last few minutes, it’s been pulling parts back into itself. Which is _exactly_ as gruesome and unpleasant as it sounds, in case that wasn’t coming across. I’ve been half-ignoring it, because it makes me ill every time I look over there.”

Pidge’s eyes practically lit up in glee. “You have to describe it,” they urged.

“It’s like it had… _tendrils_ , woven all throughout Chulatt’s body. Arteries and sinews and, I don’t know, dendrites… a whole network, multiple networks that had spread out from the creature and tangled themselves into Chulatt’s system. So this thing was just… enmeshed with my poor mouse’s nerves and musculature and organs and everything. A parasite, a passenger that was inside Chulatt and that, I don’t know, that had gotten to the point where it was just… _wearing_ him around like a suit. Dancing him like a puppet. But not in a clumsy way. Not like it didn’t know how mice move or operate. In a _perfect_ way. Where the only thing that was different was the eyes. The eyes had gone that bioluminescent green. And then… that scream. I’ve never heard a mouse make that sound. I’ve never heard _anything_ make that sound.”

Pidge looked a little like Christmas had come early, but Keith felt like he was going to be sick. “Well, that’s… terrifying,” he said.

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “It absolutely is. I’ve gone from sweat to chills about a hundred times over inside this suit. I feel like I’m about to jump out of my damn skin at every little noise I hear. And somehow, I’m hearing _tons_ of little noises.”

“Just try to stay calm,” Keith urged. _Patience yields focus_ , Shiro had said to him. He said it now, for Lance’s benefit. “Patience yields focus.”

“Believe me,” Lance said. “I’m trying. But it’s not easy when there’s an extraterrestrial biological entity splashing around in rat entrails in the corner. You know? Like I was saying, it seems to have reeled all its various tentacles and capillaries back into itself. Now it’s this kind of sleek, almost featureless thing, just sitting inside a pile of hair and meat that used to be Chulatt. What’s really strange is that… the E.T. actually looks _bigger_ than the mouse was. Like there’s no way it all could’ve fit inside Chulatt’s skin. It isn’t physically possible.”

“You need to stay clear of it,” Keith instructed. He really, _really_ didn’t like the sound of this… thing. Whatever the hell it was.

“Yeah, I’m keeping back from it.” Keith could almost _see_ Lance’s nod of agreement. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about it. As far as I know, I’m the first human who’s ever seen this lifeform. Or, scarier thought: I’m the first one who’s still alive to talk about it. So far. So in the absence of any real way to record this experience, I’m trying to take in as much of it as I possibly can.”

Pidge pulled their own phone out of their pocket. “I’m going to record this, okay, Lance? Just… tell us what you see.”

Lance took a deep breath. “Okay. I mean, I’ve been observing these mice for months. I know the behavior that’s typical for mice in general… and I know the behavior that’s typical for _these_ mice. I know that Plachu has a ‘hot spot’ behind his left ear because he won’t stop scratching. I know that Chuchule ducks her head low while she eats, like in deference to the others. Stuff like that. Stuff they’re doing even now. They’re just acting like normal mice. _Hungry_ , but normal. That’s what I was saying. They move and scramble around just like always. There’s nothing about their gait, or their sniffing behavior - and, yes, sniffing behavior is a thing I was studying in my mice, and _yes_ , I know it sounds weird, but whatever - or anything else that would make an observer think that these mice weren’t fully in control of their own bodies. But seeing the level of integration that the parasite had into Chulatt’s muscles and nerves… I’m _certain_ that the E.T. was piloting my mouse around. Okay, so, I know this is going to sound psycho… but I think the most accurate word for them is _undead_.”

Keith felt his heart seize in his chest at the word. This was… this was something from a science fiction novel. Not real life, it couldn’t be. But… _you’re talking to the survivor of a space ship crash_ , part of his mind whispered, _welcome to science fiction_.

“Maybe that’s a logic leap,” Lance continued. “Maybe I’m shouting ‘zombie’ when this is something altogether different. I mean, I think that whatever’s inside them… it’s keeping them functioning, keeping biological processes going. But are these the same mice, with the same personalities, that I was testing before the Atlas crashed? Before their eyes turned green? I really don’t think so. At all. The thing is… oh. Oh, no.”

“What is it?” Keith asked. Adrenalin seemed to sing in his veins, even though there was nothing he could do. He rose to his feet anyway. He needed to pace, to walk around, to do _something_ to burn off this nervous energy.

“The visitors are here. What… what do I do?” Lance’s voice sounded so small, it made him seem so much _younger_.

“Are you safe?” Keith asked. That was the most important thing. That Lance was _safe_.

“I…” Lance hesitated. “I don’t know. There are tears running down my face, and I haven’t even figured out _why_. It’s like my eyes decided to do whatever they wanted, throw a party before my brain had gotten anyone’s RSVPs.”

“Lance, you need to tell us what you see. We can’t help you unless we know what’s going on,” Keith urged, softer this time.

“Okay,” Lance took another deep breath. “There just… there aren’t any words that are going to accurately capture everything I’m going through… so I’m just going to tell you facts, and I’ll try not to hyperventilate or scream or anything, midway through. The first thing I saw, when they walked in, was the American flag patch on the spacesuits. There on the left shoulder, just like my own suit. Stars and stripes forever. The suits are kind of beaten up, kind of dusty - like they’ve been through hell and back. Or maybe not quite ‘and back’ yet. They’re all wearing dome helmets, with that basically opaque gold layer on the visor. I know, I know, it’s there to help filter out UV rays… but again, nothing screams ‘America!’ more than viewing the whole world through a thin layer of gold, huh?”

“Feeling pretty homesick?” Keith asked dryly, trying to use humor to cover up the dozens of emotions fighting for dominance in his chest.

“Oh, man, yeah,” Lance agreed, just as sarcastic. “I’m definitely feeling _some_ kind of sick. I mean, seeing these spacesuits, they were just so comforting, they were just so familiar… they’re just _so damn familiar_. I’m looking at four patches. Sewn onto four American uniforms. Four words in clear, legible, san serif font. Romelle. Bandor. Hira. Coran.”

“Tha-” Keith felt his breath catch in his throat. “That _can’t_ be possible.”

“Yeah!” Lance’s voice was high and panicked. “I _know_ it can’t be possible! I buried the crew - _in these uniforms_ \- back at the Atlas! Dammit all, I tried! I did everything I knew how to do! I tried my best to honor them, to give them a proper burial, and this damned moon won’t even let them have _that_! Oh, no. Oh, please stop,” Lance suddenly pleaded.

“Who are you talking to?” Keith asked, the words coming out sharper than he meant them to.

“Coran. Or, the one with Coran’s nametag. Lifting off his helmet. Aw, no. No, dammit. It’s him. It really is him. I was hoping, hoping that somehow these were just survivors from another shipwreck. Just normal people who had chanced across the Atlas, and who had taken the IEVA suits to protect themselves against the elements. But no. It’s really Coran. It’s really _all_ of them. Helmets off. Exactly the way I last saw them. Except with blank, green, glowing eyes,” Lance’s voice had gone empty. Hollow.

Keith felt a chill race down his spine, icy clutching at his chest. No. No, no, _no_. This could _not_ be happening. Not after everything they had already gotten through. Not like this. Not to Lance.

“Lance, those are _not_ your friends,” Keith said, his voice almost a growl.

“I know. I _know_ they’re not. But they look just like my friends. The eyes are wrong, I know… but the longer I look at them, the more sense they make, too,” Lance paused.

Make sense? How could any of this make sense?

“And there are… little marks around their mouths,” Lance continued, but his voice was all wrong. Stilted and hollow and empty. “Dark green scabs from… it looks like… claw marks of some sort. Like something was struggling to… to climb inside their mouths,”

“Stop looking at their eyes,” Keith instructed. “Lance…”

“You don’t understand,” Lance said, his voice still too hollow. “You’re not really hearing me. This is the first time since the crash that I’m not panicked about anything and everything. Whatever happens next… it’s what’s _supposed_ to happen. All of this… the Atlas crashing, me finding the peak… all of it was meant to take place, to bring me to this moment. To this calm.”

“Screw calm,” Keith said loudly, his fist slamming against the wall. His knuckles stung. “Get out of there!”

“No,” Lance said. “Before, I might have run from this. But now I know that I need to be a part of this union. I need this passenger, just as it needs me to play host. This is serenity like I’ve never experienced before. Coran is picking up the little green creature that was waiting, over inside Chulatt’s remains. Now I understand. It was waiting for _me_. I was waiting for _it_. It gets in through the mouth. That’s what the claw marks are. I just have to relax. Smile.”

“ _No_!” Keith heard himself say, too loudly in Adam’s tiny apartment, the noise echoing around the space. “Fight it!”

Pidge was curled into themself on the couch behind him, their hand pressed to their mouth.

“Lance,” Keith said, softer, “you have to fight it. _Please_.”

“I… I can’t… oh! God! What am I _doing_?” Lance said, his voice losing all trace of the weird hollow tone, snapping back to normal in the blink of an eye. “‘It gets in through the mouth.’ I just realized. The… the green spit. The horrible taste in the mornings. Oh, god. One of these things was trying to climb inside me _while I was sleeping_! I have to get out of here!”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Keith said, his frustration and relief blurring together.

“Yeah, well, as the invasion force is turning us into pod people, you get to say ‘I told you so.’ So _that’s_ got to feel pretty nice,” Lance said sarcastically. “I think I can get out if I knock down my old friends here and just scramble away in the chaos! I think I can duck past Bandor. He was always the slowest of the bunch… _whooof_!”

“Did you make it?” Keith asked, feeling like his heart had taken up permanent residence in his throat.

“No! I didn’t make it! ‘Whoof’ is not the noise of someone who made it,” Lance snapped. “Bandor is… no longer the slowest of the bunch. I’m not sure there _is_ a slowest of the bunch, anymore. They were… dammit… they were all just standing there, aloof, until I tried to get around them… and suddenly they’ve become… really strong… and _really_ focused on stopping me. Agh! Romelle went straight for my hurt shoulder! It’s like they’re targeting my injuries - like they _know_ , somehow! I can’t… I can’t fight off all of them! I… any _one_ of them is stronger than I am!”

“If you can’t fight, flee!” Keith urged.

“Flee, _where_?” Lance asked. “There’s nowhere to run. They’ve got me cornered in this control room. I can’t outmaneuver them. I can’t win. Oh my god. This is it, isn’t it? I’m going to die, right here in this room, at the hands of the Atlas crew! They’re going to infect me with whatever the hell their little parasite creature is… and _I am going to die_. Why won’t they all stop _screaming_?”

Keith wracked his brain for something, anything that could help Lance.

“There must be a solution,” Pidge said, their voice very small.

“What possible solution could there be?” Lance asked sharply. “If I try to make a break for the exit, they block me, and they’re strong as hell. If I back off, they go back into this weird ‘standby’ mode, just waiting for me to try another dash. All I can do from this room is fiddle with these computers… that I don’t really know how to fiddle with. Don’t get me wrong, I’d _love_ to be more proactive about taking out my jailers, but it’s not as if I have any weapons. Really wish I’d packed one - or, hell, _built_ one from spare parts back at the caravel - but I didn’t honestly think I was gonna need to be packing heat for a shootout at high moon.”

“There must be something to compute,” Pidge whispered.

“I’m at a loss with these systems. I might as well start bashing my fists - or, hell, my forehead - against the keys at random, for all the good it’ll do,” Lance muttered. “Wait! That’s it!”

“What’s ‘it’?” Keith asked, furrowing his brow. “Random bashing?”

“No,” Lance said. “Not random bashing. Well, not _totally_ random. Just hear me out. This peak, this control room, it’s a command center for a weapon, yeah? That’s what the TIME TO PULSE is all about. I don’t know what the weapon _is_ exactly… but like Pidge said earlier, it’s probably an electromagnetic pulse, a particle beam, something _big_. So the odds are pretty good that, if it’s powerful enough to rip starships out of the sky, then all I have to do is figure out how to reprogram it to unleash on _these_ coordinates… and it will be powerful enough to fry every inch of this peak to a crisp. Including the screaming green aliens that are running around inside the undead crew of the Atlas!”

“Wait, Lance. Hold on a minute,” Keith said, the icy dread spreading across his entire body. Because if Lance did what he said he would, then he would be frying the entire peak. Not just the aliens, but also… also himself.

“No, no, there’s no time to ‘hold on.’” Lance said defensively. “Time is at a premium around here. It’s moving in ways I don’t totally understand. You and I might get cut off for a second that turns out to be half an hour, from where I’m observing. Who _knows_ what these Atlas zombies could do in that time? No. I’ve got to act fast. Are you with me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Keith asked, helpless.

“I mean, _sure_ , you have a choice. And if you really wanted to, I’d give you a forum to try and talk me out of this. But this is what it’s all been leading towards, isn’t it?” Lance asked. “Something incredibly stupid and slightly heroic - or maybe the other way around - that just might save the day?”

Keith slammed his fist into the wall again. Dammit. “Can you really reprogram it?”

“I was able to interrupt the feed, wasn’t I? Here’s the thing: I’ve got four undead coworkers, three undead mice, and a little green extraterrestrial I don’t know _what_ the hell it is… all staring me down with these cold, unnatural emerald eyes. There is _nothing_ behind those eyes. And they all seem to really want _my_ eyes to look like that, too. So I’ve got, literally, nothing else in the whole universe left to lose. If I fail, I’m no worse off than I would be anyway. And if I succeed… they’ll have to stop this goddamned screaming. Wish me luck?” Lance asked, trying to instill as much false bravery into his voice as possible, but Keith could hear it wavering.

“Obviously I wish you luck,” Keith said.

“Good luck,” Pidge whispered.

“Thanks,” Lance said. “You know, I _really_ don’t like the fact that the whole Atlas crew just turned and looked at me, at the same time. Scary monsters and super creeps. Never mind that, it’s-”

“Communication interrupted,” the robotic female voice intoned. “Date/Time stamp invalid. Searching. Reacquiring signal. Establishing connection. Receiving message.”

“...awful lot has gone on since I disappeared!” Lance was saying. “Not exactly the best time for it to happen!”

“How much time just passed?” Keith asked, his heart sinking. How much time with Lance had they just lost?

“I don’t know, seconds for you, I’m guessing? More like eight or ten minutes on this end. Good news: it was enough time for me to get the pulse weapon targeted to the precise location of the peak. Confirmed it against the topographical map. Latitude, longitude, we’re good to go. But the crew from the Atlas… they seemed to understand the plan, and they did _not_ like it! I don’t know how they know. They don’t seem to be sensate. They’re not speaking. They’re just… freaking… _screaming_. And they’re all coming at me! I’m trapped. If I back away from the computer, I’m afraid they’ll shut down the sequence. But if I stay here, I’m afraid they’ll rip me apart, or shove that green thing down my throat!”

“Guard your throat,” Keith instructed.

“I’m trying!” Lance insisted. “Believe me! I don’t want that _thing_ inside me! Whatever’s piloting my old friends, it’s making them stronger than they ever used to be. They’re not bulkier, but it’s like… all their muscles are working… way too efficiently! I can’t grapple. I’m just kicking out, lashing out, trying to keep them at bay! Wait, there’s… there’s a siren going off!”

“A good siren or a bad siren?” Keith asked.

“It’s louder than the alien screaming, so I’m gonna go ahead and say ‘good siren!’ It’s… oh my god. Finally! My screens are all lit up with what can only be _the greatest news in all of time and space_! I’m finally going to get out of here! Um… _except_ …”

“‘Except’ what?”

“ _Except_ that they’re walking into a situation that they cannot _possibly_ be prepared to encounter,” Lance stressed. “There are eight _alien beings_ in this room. ‘This room’ being a control center that seems to exist for the express purpose of pulling ships out of space… and using the bodies of those ships’ crews as hosts for a parasitic lifeform. I have no idea whether my rescuers are armed and can fight off these creatures… hell, I have no idea whether these creatures are even _vulnerable_ to standard-issue stun batons… which is probably about as heavy as any armament is going to get. And the alien beings have taken notice of the rescue ship, too. Good news, they’re leaving me alone, here at the computer. Bad news, they’re starting to head down the corridor. Oh, hell. They’re going to intercept my rescuers before my rescuers can rescue me.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Keith growled. He was right. “You have to get there first.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’m going to try,” Lance said. “It’s a question of whether I’ll be able to push past them in the corridor. If we’re all going the same direction, will they try to impede me?”

“Guess there’s no choice but to try it,” Keith said, clenching his fist. It was so tight, he could feel his fingernails digging into the skin of his palm.

“Hey… so… they aren’t being… _pleasant_ about it… but they’re not physically holding me back. It’s like trying to get a good look at the Mona Lisa around all the tourists. Okay. Mad dash down the hall. I’ll talk to you in a minute,” Lance promised, before the communicator clicked off.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Keith hissed again.

“He’ll make it in time,” Pidge said, although Keith wasn’t sure who the words were for. They reached forward, grabbing Keith’s hand and pulling his fist apart, revealing the crescent moons that Keith’s nails had carved into his own flesh.

“The rescue ship has landed about a football field’s length away,” Lance said, his voice cutting through the static. “A hundred yards. Not great at sports, but I know that one. It’s a small craft - maybe the size of that caravel. Maybe even smaller. But the big difference is, unlike all the other ships on this horrible godforsaken moon… it’s all in one piece. Ha. Ha ha ha. This is… I’m laughing, and crying, and I feel freaking _delirious_. I, ah, I just fell to my knees because I can’t make my legs work correctly, the stupid things. I’m just _shaking_ , I’m so happy.” Lance’s voice is wet, but Keith can hear the hope in his voice. For the first time in three days. And it would be beautiful, if it weren’t for…

“Lance, you need to get back up,” Keith said.

“I know,” Lance agreed. “I should. I should get up. I don’t have time to just go around collapsing in gratitude every time someone comes from half a galaxy away to save me. I should really get some perspective. Ha. Ha! It’s amazing, how strong the urge is just to go into the fetal position. Just how comforting that seems. Just to lie here on the dry, white, cracked surface of this unforgiving moon and cry. Cry into the cracks. There are… there are more cracks than there were a minute ago. A lot more. Oh. Oh, _dammit_.”

“What’s wrong?” Keith demanded.

“The surface of the moon. All the rock inside this crater, it’s… it’s cracking. With the peak at its center, the rock is just… splitting. Just opening up. Little cracks feeding into bigger ones. And there’s light coming from those cracks. Three guesses what unnatural color it is. No,” Lance groaned. “This is a nightmare. I thought… I thought I had eight little green aliens to worry about. But no. I’ve got _thousands_.”

“Get up, Lance! Get up and run towards that rescue ship!”

“I don’t… I don’t think I’d make it,” the hope drained from Lance’s voice, leaving only the sound of defeat in its wake. “It’s a hundred yards away, over increasingly uneven terrain. And these _things_ have broken me. I don’t have the spirit to run. To hell with it. To hell with _me_.”

“Do _not_ give up right now!” Keith snapped.

“But giving up is the only thing that makes _any sense_ right now. No matter how hard I’ve worked to make it to this point… this horrorshow moon has worked just a little bit harder. I’m tired of the fight. You want me, moon?” Lance asked, bitterness dripping from the words. “You can have me.”

“Shut up,” Keith growled. “Shut up and run for it.”

“‘Run for it?’ While the ground is literally giving way beneath my feet? I can’t think of one good reason why I should put in the effort,” Lance said tiredly.

“Dying right now is selfish” Keith said, blinking at the words that had just slipped past his own lips.

“What do you mean it’s ‘selfish?’” Lance echoed.

Keith tightened his fingers into a fist. Except, Pidge’s hand was still in his, so instead of forming a fist, his fingers just tightened around theirs. He… he didn’t even know how to answer that, how to give life to the half-formed thoughts that had been building almost against his will.

“You have to warn others,” Pidge declared, and suddenly Keith felt like he could breathe again.

“Dammit,” Lance growled. “You’re right. See, where I started to get into trouble - where it all went wrong in the first place - was when I first made contact with you, Keith, a couple days back. If I hadn’t done that… if I would’ve just rolled over and died _back then_ … it would have made everything so much easier. Instead, you’ve kept me alive through thick and thin… and I’m massively grateful. And now I have to repay that kindness by keeping other people alive, too. So, you know… thanks for that.”

“No problem,” Keith answered weakly. “Now run!”

“There’s a lot of ground to cover,” Lance said. “Most of that ground has cracks in it. Most of those cracks have alien parasites emerging from them. There are about a million of them, and three potential hosts that I can see, including me. Me? I’m the one yelling for the other two to get their helmets back on, before the aliens get into their mouths. I’m trying to do this while covering my own mouth. It’s working… _not great_ , I’d say. Rescue ship’s VTOL engines are firing. They know they’re in trouble. And they’re in trouble because they’re waiting on _me_. I’m never gonna make it. I’m never gonna make it,” Lance chanted.

“You’re gonna make it,” Keith protested.

“The rescue team understood me!” Lance enthused. “They got their helmets on! That means… I’m the _only_ potential host. Thousands of eyes on me. It’s… it’s hard not to be drawn in. They need me. They’re calling to me. They’re screaming. All of them, screaming. But I’m starting to understand it. It’s starting to sound… sweet. Like music. The longer I look out, at this sea of green… the more sure I am that I should stay here.” The empty, hollow, distant tone had returned to Lance’s voice.

No, no, no, no. They were _so close_.

“Absolutely not! Board that ship, Lance, I swear to god!” Keith growled.

“I don’t… I don’t want to board that ship. Or… if I board it… I don’t want it to leave. It should just be another in the collection. The collection that begins here but will span eternity. All alone my path to the ship are the eyes.”

“You have to ignore the eyes. You _have_ to,” Keith said. His voice was dangerously close to begging, it sounded wet. Was he crying?

“I can’t ignore the eyes. There’s nothing to look at anymore, _except_ for the eyes. They can see deeper into me than anyone ever has,” Lance recited, sounding like the words were coming from somewhere very far away. “They need me in that control room. Bringing them more ships. Bringing them more _hosts_. There aren’t enough hosts in this sector, so we call them from other times. We reach into the future for our prey, we fish from the past for our sustenance. We pull starships from every space and time to feed out needs. Still it is not enough. We must bring them here, from all places and from all times. Until every living thing is our host. And we are within every living thing. _We are_ … hey! Ouch!” Lance’s voice lost it’s hollow tone, as it filled with indignation.

“What the _fuck_ were you just babbling about?” Keith asked, trying to make sense of everything he had just heard.

“What _was_ I babbling about? Good question. I’m not too sure. But I _do_ know why I stopped. Um… apparently, what happened was, I got punched in the jaw. _Hard_. By a member of the rescue team. Because I was spouting some kind of gibberish that, honestly, I don’t remember saying _at all_. Something about… capturing host bodies from throughout space and time? I have no idea.” Keith could almost see Lance shrugging helplessly. “And so I’m now on board the rescue ship, and I’m afraid to say this because I might jinx it… but I think we’re going to be okay. Give me a minute, okay? I want to thank my rescuers, and I need to tell them about Captain Allura. I’ll be right back.”

The communication cut, and Keith dragged in a gasp of air. Lance was okay. Lance was on board the rescue ship. Lance was going to get the _hell_ off that _motherfucking_ moon.

“Keith! Keith, you’re never going to believe this!” Lance’s voice broke back through the static, more excited than Keith had ever heard it. “But… my rescuers… I was telling them about Captain Allura and they agreed to stop and pick up her stasis pod, and while I was talking the one who punched me in the face… he… took his helmet off. And I swear to god, it’s him. You were right! About the Kerberos and… and everything. It’s… it’s him!”

Keith felt his legs give out from underneath him, as a wave of hope that he had buried for two years swept over him. “Shiro?” He asked weakly.

There was some brief static, and then a new, achingly familiar voice was speaking. “Keith… is this… is it really you?”

The tears that had been threatening to fall began in earnest. “ _Shiro_ ,” he gasped. “You’re _alive_. You didn’t… everyone said that the Kerberos crashed.”

“It almost did,” Shiro admitted. “We were struck by some sort of… pulse. It knocked out our communications, killed our warp drive. So we were just… stuck out here. The Kerberos was outfitted for a three year journey, so we’ve been okay. But our ship has just been stuck in this solar system with no way to leave. We kept far enough away to avoid whatever blast it was that almost knocked us from the sky in the first place, but when we picked up the S.O.S. signal…”

“You were able to come back and rescue Lance,” Keith finished for him.

He could practically _hear_ Shiro’s smile. “Your friend here has been filling us in on everything, how you helped keep him alive. I’m very proud of you, Keith.”

Keith felt himself flush. “I didn’t do anything.”

Pidge was sitting beside him, gaping at the phone. Finally, they recovered enough to speak. “Shiro,” they asked weakly. “You said ‘we.’ Does that mean my dad is with you? And Matt?”

“Katie? Is that you?” Shiro asked, and Keith could picture the furrow of his brow.

“Yes,” Pidge said weakly.

“They’re here,” Shiro said gently. “Piloting the ship right now, and trying to put as much distance between us and this moon as possible.”

Pidge slumped back against the couch, looking like they had just been struck over the head with a baseball bat.

“Wait,” Keith said, “if your warp drive is damaged, then you’re still stuck out there.”

“Yeah, this ship won’t be going anywhere far anytime soon,” Shiro confirmed.

Keith jumped to his feet. “I need to go find Adam. Admiral Sanda needs to send a rescue ship out after you.”

“Adam is with you?” Shiro asked, sounding like the wind had been knocked from his lungs. “Can I talk to him?”

“He’s… he’s not here,” Keith admitted, hating the soft, disappointed noise Shiro let out in response. “But I’ll find him! And then you can talk to him.”

“That would… be nice,” Shiro said. “Oh, wait, I hear Sam calling for me. Here, I’ll give you back to your friend while I go grab the Captain and her stasis pod.”

“Be careful,” Keith said sternly. “And tell Lance to let you call me when you get back.”

“Promise,” Shiro said.

The communication line crackled with static, and then Lance’s voice filled the silence. “So, yeah, I think we can count this as a ‘win,’” he declared. “The Holts did a full-vessel scan for any extraterrestrial stowaways, but all the aliens and their glowing green eyes are back on the moon, and as soon as Shiro gets Captain Allura on board, we’re going to rocket away as fast as we possibly can. Matt wants to call in some sort of nuclear strike on the whole damn rock. I’m sure that’s above my pay grade, but if for some reason I _do_ get a vote… that’s one in favor of blowing it to hell and tap-dancing on the ashes. So, yeah. They’ve brought me some food and some Gatorade, and told me to take it slow on both… and they’re saying that I’m due for a long rest, and probably a lifetime of trauma counseling. But I’m alive. I made it. And I couldn’t have done it without you. So… thank you. I mean it. And here’s to a brighter future. I guess I’ll see you back on earth. This is Cadet Lance Álvarez, formerly of the Atlas, signing off.”

“Connection terminated,” the robotic woman’s voice intoned.

“Goodbye, Lance,” Keith whispered into the quiet of Adam’s apartment. “See you soon.”


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Ares will enter atmosphere in five minutes,” Curtis, a Galaxy Garrison lieutenant declared. “Four minutes”
> 
> There was a pause. “Three minutes.”
> 
> It seemed like everyone in Mission Control was holding their breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the final chapter. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has taken the time to read, to comment, to leave kudos, to livetweet on twitter. Writing this fic was such a fun experience and I'm so happy I got to share it with y'all. Cait, thank you for beta'ing and just generally being the best. If you enjoyed this fic, feel free to check out our Hogwarts Triwizard Tournament au - i need someone like you to lighten the load, which updates every other friday. Anyways, without further ado...  
> \- slowklancing

Keith had wanted to be there, right out on the landing pad when the SS Ares returned with the Kerberos crew and the Atlas survivors onboard. He had begged Adam for weeks, until finally Adam had caved and allowed Keith to wait in the Mission Control room. Which was close to the landing pad as any non-essential personnel were going to be allowed to go.

Because the survivors were going to be placed under quarantine until Admiral Sanda and other important Galaxy Garrison and NASA figures were sure they hadn’t brought any of the parasitic aliens back to Earth with them. And then they would go from there.

Which, Keith had seen what those aliens could do, so he understood. Well, maybe he hadn’t _seen_ it directly, but…

He understood.

That didn’t mean he liked it.

It had been over two years, now closer to three, since he had seen Shiro. Since everyone had told him that Shiro had died when the Kerberos went dark. If anyone deserved to be there to greet his brother when he got off the ship, it was Keith. Okay, and maybe Adam. And Pidge should probably be there too, so they could see their own family members, Sam and Matt Holt, the other two who had been aboard the Kerberos.

And then there was Lance.

One of only two survivors of the Atlas crash, Lance Álvarez was a student at the Galaxy Garrison, the same as Keith. Only Lance had won a lottery, allowing him to join the Atlas and its crew for what should have been the learning experience of a lifetime. In some ways, it had been. In other ways, it had been a horrorshow of epic proportions.

And now they were all coming home. The journey back from Solar System NB-71 had taken months, even though the Ares had a working warp drive to increase the speed of the return flight. Space travel was still a _slow_ process, and every day had seemed to drag on until it seemed that this day, _this day_ , would never arrive.

But now it was here, and Keith wasn’t sure whether it was excitement or nerves burning in his stomach.

Thanks to Pidge’s brilliant app, which they still weren’t entirely sure how they had managed to invent, Keith had been able to keep in frequent contact with those onboard the remains of the Kerberos, and later onboard the Ares, itself. But talking over the radio was hardly the same as seeing them in person.

Keith watched the video screen in front of him intently, the satellite imagery just beginning to pick up the Ares as it drew closer to Earth. The other video screen, the one showing the landing platform just a little less than an hour away from the complex where Keith was currently standing, was still, although the imagery was much closer than the satellite imagery since it was provided by an Earth security camera.

“The Ares will enter atmosphere in five minutes,” Curtis, a Galaxy Garrison lieutenant declared. “Four minutes”

There was a pause. “Three minutes.”

It seemed like everyone in Mission Control was holding their breath.

“Two minutes.”

This re-entry had to go perfectly.

“One minute.”

Otherwise, the whole rescue mission had been for… for nothing.

“And the Ares has broken atmosphere!” Curtis declared.

A cheer went up through the room, seeming to bounce around the computer screens.

Keith took a deep breath, watching the Ares draw closer and closer on the screen. It was a decently-sized ship, larger than the Kerberos had been, and its bulk seemed even more impressive compared to the clouds it began to pass through.

It didn’t take the Ares long to cut through the Earth’s atmosphere, steadily making its way closer to Arizona, to the Garrison, to the people waiting for it.

Beside him, Pidge was watching the screens with wide eyes. Like they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing, either.

In just a matter of a few hours, a few days, however long the quarantine would last for, the waiting would be over.

It was a surreal, dizzying feeling.

Keith wasn’t sure how long he watched the screen for. All he knew was that one second the Ares was in the sky, and the next second it was landing, the wheels rolling against the ground, the drag chute dragging behind it. One second the figures onboard had seemed impossibly distant, and the next second, the Ares’ ramp was opening and they were stepping down onto solid ground.

There was the familiar brown tuff of hair and wire glasses that looked so similar to the ones Pidge wore - Matt Holt. And the grey-haired man behind him could only be his father.

And… and… Keith felt a wet sob bubble up from his chest. There was Shiro, his broad shoulders and dark hair. The part he used to dye white had faded back to his natural color, and it made him look younger. But he seemed like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, in that stern, steady way that Shiro had always had.

He watched as Shiro’s gaze snapped up, as it caught on something that Keith couldn’t see, and then Shiro was breaking into a run. And this time it was a wet laugh that caught in Keith’s throat as Adam stumbled into the view of the camera. And then they were hugging, Shiro pulling Adam so close that Keith wondered if Adam could even breathe.

He glanced away when Shiro dropped a kiss to Adam’s lips, because no matter how long its been, he still doesn’t need to see his brother kissing anyone. And, besides, there was still someone he hadn’t seen yet…

Oh.

There he was.

Lance was the last one to climb down from the Ares, emerging from the ship to blink in the bright sunlight.

He looked different than he had in his Facebook and Instagram pictures. Impossibly thinner, if it were possible, and his hair had grown out from the short cropped style he had kept it in, so that now it hung in loose brown curls that tangled around his ears and flopped down into his forehead.

But he was smiling broadly, as he tipped his gaze upward, letting the sunshine dance across his features.

Unlike the Holts and Shiro, who were no being greeted by various Garrison and NASA personnel who likely knew them before they had gone missing, Lance was alone. There was no one there to greet him, no one to run forward into his arms the way Adam had done. Keith couldn’t place why, but the realization made him infinitely sad.

There should have been someone there for him.

His family, or… or… someone.

“They’re home!” Pidge cried, throwing their arms around Keith. “Oh my god, they’re _home_.”

Keith patted their back gently, letting out another wet chuckle. “Yeah,” he agreed. “They’re home.”

< < < > > >

It was almost five hours later when Adam arrived to usher Keith and Pidge into the back of a Garrison-issued SUV and another forty minutes to make it to the Garrison building attached to the landing pad.

“How is everyone?” Keith asked Adam, tapping his fingers against his knee. “They’re… they’re all okay, right? I mean, no one brought back any of those… those _things_ , right?”

Adam smiled, slow and soft. “Everyone is fine,” he assured Keith. “The Garrison did a thorough sweep, none of the aliens came back on the ship. They want to keep everyone overnight for observation, and in the morning they’ll release an official announcement telling the world what happened. And then NASA is going to push for permission to Nuke that moon right out of the sky.”

Keith nodded. “Good,” he growled. “They should.”

Pidge nodded their agreement.

“What about… what about the families? Of those involved?” Keith asked, feeling a warm flush creeping up his neck.

“Well, obviously Colleen has been filled in, and I called Shiro’s mom, she’s on the first flight here. If you’re talking about Lance’s family, they’re already here, they arrived a few hours ago. As soon as he was cleared, Admiral Sanda let them go see him.”

Keith let out a long, slow breath. So Lance wouldn’t be alone.

“We’re here,” Pidge declared, pressing their nose to the window. Keith followed their view. It was dark outside, it had to be almost midnight, but the Garrison’s outpost was glowing with enough electric lights to make it as bright as midday.

The SUV rolled to a stop, and Adam leaned over, opening the door for them. “Come on, let’s go see them.”

Pidge jumped down from the car, barely able to contain their excitement. Keith followed behind them more slowly, feeling like his stomach was tying itself in knots.

Adam’s hand clamped down onto his shoulder. “Are you ready?” He asked, like he could sense Keith’s trepidation. Maybe he could.

Keith took a deep breath, anchoring himself in the moment. “Yes,” he declared.

Adam nodded, and then led Keith and Pidge into the facility. He checked them in, pressing visitor badges into their hands, even though it had to be past any kind of regular visiting hours at any normal hospital.

But this wasn’t a regular hospital.

They turned a corner, bringing them to some kind of residential wing with rooms for Garrison employees to stay at while their bodies adjusted to being on Earth.

Colleen Holt was waiting outside one of the doors, and she jumped to her feet when Pidge rounded the corner. Pidge broke into a sprint, tossing their arms around their mother. “Are they here?” Pidge asked wetly, wiping tears away from their eyes.

“Just inside, they’re sleeping right now, but the doctors said we can sit with them,” Colleen said softly.

“Okay,” Pidge agreed, letting their mom usher them into the room.

Keith watched the scene unfold, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Here,” Adam said, nodding towards another door.

Keith followed him, watching as Adam rapped his knuckles against the door softly before letting himself in. “Takashi?” He called. “I brought someone.”

Keith took a deep breath, before he followed Adam into the room.

Shiro was perched on the edge of what looked like a hospital bed, and he was wearing an ugly Garrison-issued uniform, but he was sitting there and he was real and he wasn’t dead and…

“Shiro!” Keith cried, closing the last of the distance between them and tossing his arms around Shiro’s shoulder.

He felt Shiro’s answering laugh rumble against him, and then Shiro pounded his back in the ridiculous bro-hug that he always did, because Shiro was secretly a frat boy in disguise.

“It’s good to see you, Keith,” Shiro said, and was it Keith’s imagination or did Shiro’s voice sound thick?

Keith released his grip on Shiro, feeling mildly embarrassed by the uncharacteristic show of emotion. But it had been two years, sue him. “It’s good to see you, too,” Keith agreed, and, oh, no. His voice sounded dangerously wet, too.

“So Adam tells me you got yourself kicked out of the Garrison,” Shiro said, trying and failing to sound stern.

Keith felt his lips twitch into a smile. “I convinced them to take me back,” he protested.

Shiro reached forward, ruffling his hair. “Tell me about it,” he requested.

And so Keith did.

< < < > > >

It was a couple hours later, nearing two in the morning, when Shiro finally gave into his exhaustion and began to drift off into sleep.

Keith watched his brother’s chest rise and fall steadily for a few minutes, before he turns his gaze to Adam.

“Do you know where Lance’s room is?” He asked, and this time he didn’t make any effort to hide the blush that was creeping up his neck.

“It’s right down the hall,” Adam nodded his head. “Number 6.”

Keith nodded, and climbed to his feet.

He sent one last glance over Shiro’s sleeping form, watching Adam take his place in the chair beside the bed, sweeping Shiro’s dark hair away from his forehead, before he slipped out of the room and made his way down the hall.

He found the room easily, only a few doors down from Shiro’s.

He raised his hand to knock, but then brought his hand back down. What if Lance was sleeping? He didn’t want to wake him.

Instead, he just cracked the door open, slipping inside.

“ _Veronica_ , I told you, I’m _fine_. Go make Mamá eat something, I’ll still be here when you get back, I told y-” a familiar voice cut itself off. The room was dark, the only light coming from the moonlight streaming through the open windows, but Lance was sitting upright in the bed, wearing a pair of blue pajamas and staring at the doorway, frowning in confusion. “Um, sorry, do I know you?”

Right. Lance had no idea what he looked like. Unlike Keith, he hadn’t had the internet to stalk anyone. This was stupid, so _stupid_. But Lance _had_ said that he would see him on Earth.

“Um,” Keith cleared his throat, lifting one hand in a half-hearted wave. “Hi.”

Wow. Great going. That wasn’t incredibly awkward at all.

But Lance’s confusion shifted, fading into an uncertain smile. “Keith?” He asked.

Keith took another step into the room. “Um. Yeah. That’s, um, that’s me.”

“I recognised your voice,” Lance said, sounding proud of himself. “I wasn’t sure I would, when we met, because sometimes talking over the radio distorts your voice, you know?”

Keith nodded.

It was true, kind of. Lance’s voice was much clearer in person. And now there was the imagery to accompany it, where as before Keith had tried to imagine what Lance’s body language had been while they spoke, he could actually _see_ it. He could see the way in which Lance’s eyes were sweeping across his body, like he was trying to memorize Keith’s features. He could see the soft brown curls that hung down into Lance’s blue eyes. He could see the freckles dotting the tanned skin, a few shades lighter than it had been in his Facebook pictures from months aboard a shapship.

“I always wondered what you looked like, I was never really sure, you know,” Lance continued, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s good to finally put a face to the voice.”

Keith rolled his eyes.

“Well, aren’t you going to say ‘likewise, Lance’ or something like that?” Lance asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Keith felt his feet carrying him even further into the room. “I, um,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I actually already knew what you looked like.”

Lance narrowed his eyes at him. “We were never in the same classes,” he declared. “I would have remembered someone like you.”

Keith wasn’t sure what to make of the last statement, so instead he offered “I looked you up on Facebook.”

“Oh my god,” Lance said happily, “of course you did. Did you spend hours scrolling through my feed, looking at my beautiful face?”

He did, not that he was going to admit that to Lance.

But the blush rapidly spreading across his face must have given him away, because Lance’s face lost all trace of humor. “ _Oh_ ,” he breathed softly.

“Can I ask you something?” Keith asked, he was so close to the bed know that he could make out the flecks of navy in Lance’s ocean eyes.

“Sure,” Lance agreed easily.

“Were you really going to sacrifice yourself in order to try and blow up the moon?” Keith asked. The question had been on the tip of his tongue every time he talked to Lance, while the other boy was on the Kerberos or the Ares, waiting to make it home. But he had never let himself ask. Had wanted to be able to study Lance’s face when he finally did.

Which is what he did now.

Lance bit is lip, which was slightly chapped, as if he did that a lot. His shoulders shifted against the pillow behind him. “Yes,” he finally admitted, dragging his eyes up from staring at his bed, so that he could meet Keith’s gaze, and his eyes are blue steel, daring Keith to argue with him.

And Keith wanted to, he felt his fingers tighten into a fist. Because who did this kid think he was, that he could just throw his life away like that, without thinking that there might be someone who would… someone who would _miss_ him.

“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” Lance asked.

Keith released his fist, let out a breath of air. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’ve been thinking of what I would have done, in your shoes. I would have blown that peak to smithereens.”

Lance nodded, looking satisfied.

“But,” Keith started.

Lance opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with whatever Keith was about to say, but Keith beat him to it.

“I’m really glad you didn’t,” he said.

Lance deflated, slumping back against his pillows. “Me too.” He agreed.

“Because,” Keith continued, “I really wanted to meet you.”

Lance looked up at him, his gaze softening. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Keith affirmed. “I had to meet the wonderful, brave, self-sacrificing idiot who spent three days stranded on a moon and changed my life.”

Lance shifted, like he was uncomfortable with the praise. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he said.

It was Keith’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s too much.”

“No!” Lance said too quickly. “It’s just… you were there for me when no one else way, and you listened to me, and… and you saved me, and, you know, I’m pretty sure that I might be a little in love with you, which is silly because we barely know each other. I mean, really, we _literally just met_. But then you say things like that, and I just… you shouldn’t say things like that.”

Keith felt himself melt, the last of the awkward uncomfortableness fading in the wake of Lance’s confession.

Keith crouched down beside the bed, so that he was level with Lance’s face, made sure that his voice was steady when he said “It’s not silly.”

Lance blinked at him, his blue eyes wide.

“I would have flown to that moon, myself, if it meant I could bring you home,” Keith told him. “If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

Lance’s lips twitched up into a smile, he reached over with one of his hands, letting his fingers skim across Keith’s cheek. His fingers stilled, resting against the side of Keith’s face, and then he leaned forward, pressing his lips softly to Keith’s.

Like they had looked, Lance’s lips were dry and chapped, but they slid smoothly over Keith’s own.

It was soft, and chaste, and Lance was pulling away far too soon, but it still curled Keith’s toes and sang him a song of starlight and midnight.

“Oh,” Lance said softly, looking at Keith like he had never seen him before. Which… technically, he _hadn’t_. Lance shifted his hand, letting it tangle in Keith’s hair. “You’re beautiful,” Lance whispered into the air between them, like it was a secret.

Keith let his own fingers dance amongst Lance’s curls. “So are you,” he whispered back.

Lance’s answering grin was blinding, a full moon in the near dark. Then he snorted to himself. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, the laughter touching the blue of his eyes and lighting them up in a way that Keith decided he wanted to see a hundred, a thousand, a million more times.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Keith said, as he rolled his eyes.

“Good. Well, now that the formalities are over,” Lance’s voice dropped, and he leaned in closer, his lips just inches away from Keith’s.

Keith felt his gaze flicker between Lance’s lips and his eyes, and then Lance closed the space between them, pressing another soft, hesitant kiss to Keith’s lips.

Keith could feel Lance humming slightly against his mouth, could feel Lance reaching up and tipping Keith’s chin to the side, changing the angle of the kiss just slightly. But these were secondary compared to the way that Lance’s lips tasted like spearmint toothpaste and how everywhere his fingers brushed felt like there was a trail of sparks dancing across Keith’s skin.

His eyes fluttered closed, so that he was completely enveloped by Lance, Lance, _Lance_.

There was a burst of red light behind his eyelids, but Keith didn’t even think to question it until he heard a laughing female voice say “Sorry, hermano, we didn’t realize you had company.”

Lance’s fingers stilled against Keith’s face, and then he was pulling away abruptly. “Ronnie!” He said, too loudly.

Keith opened his eyes, feeling a warm flush creep over his face as he turned over his shoulder to take in the girl standing in the doorway smirking at them. She looked like Lance, she shared his brown skin and brown curls and blue eyes. His sister, she had to be.

“I thought you and Mamá were gonna get food and then find a place to sleep,” Lance said.

Veronica rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to check on my baby brother,” she cooed.

Lance blushed, barely visible against his skin. “Veronica, this is Keith. Keith, Veronica.”

“Oh, _Keith_ ,” Veronica said knowingly. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

It was Lance’s turn to roll his eyes. “Well, as you can see, Ronnie, I’m _fine_.”

“Okay, okay,” Veronica allowed, holding up her hands. “I’ll leave the two of you to it. Goodnight, Leandro,” she said, slipping out and closing the door behind her.

“Leandro?” Keith asked, arching a brow.

Lance turned, burying his face in a pillow. “Shut up,” he said, but he was laughing.

Keith laughed, pushing himself off the ground.

Lance shifted, so that he could peak at Keith with one eye. “Where are you going?” He asked.

“It’s late,” Keith said, “I should let you sleep. I’ll go find another room.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lance insisted, shifting over. “You can stay right here.”

Keith raised an eyebrow at the invitation.

“I just…” Lance hesitated. “I don’t really want to be alone tonight. I can barely sleep without seeing the Atlas crew and glowing green things and…” he broke off shuddering. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay,” Keith relented, slipping off his shoes and climbing up into the bed which was clearly only designed for one person, he and Lance’s faces so close to each other that Keith felt like he was going cross-eyed from trying to focus on Lance’s features.

Lance reached into the space between them, tangling his fingers around Keith’s. The starlight danced off the edges of his features. The curve of his neck. The angle of his nose. The arch of his brow.

“Goodnight, Keith,” Lance whispered.

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith responded. And this time, Lance’s audio line wasn’t already closed, this time Keith could watch his lips twitch in recognition, this time Keith knew that Lance had actually _heard_ the words.

Lance’s breathing slowed, evened.

Keith tipped his head up, so he could look out of the Garrison’s windows, to where the stars were twinkling overhead, somewhere very far away.

“Thank you for bringing him back to me,” he whispered, and he isn’t sure if he’s talking to the Garrison or space, itself, in all its wild infinity.

The stars seemed to twinkle in response, and Keith let his eyes flutter closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading, commenting, leaving kudos, or livetweeting me on twitter. Your reactions mean more to me than you could ever know. If you enjoyed this fic, I highly, highly recommend you check out Lifeline and the other games by 3 Minute Games, LLC. If you’re specifically interested in the story of Taylor the Astronaut, then be sure to check out the sequels of Lifeline - Lifeline: Silent Night and Lifeline: Halfway to Infinity. If you enjoyed this fic, please feel free to leave kudos or comments, or come find me on twitter @slowklancing

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed the fic, feel free to drop a comment or leave kudos or just come find me to scream on twitter over @slowklancing 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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